Jewel-less Crown Saga of Life

Jewel-less Crown - Saga of life

BS Murthy

ISBN 81-901911-6-0
copyright © 2004 BS Murthy
This improved E-book edition is of 2013
Cover design by GDC creative advertising (p) ltd., Hyderabad –500 080
with the watercolor painting of Mr. Niranajn

Other books by BS Murthy -
Benign Flame: Saga of Love
Crossing the Mirage- Passing through youth
Glaring Shadow - A stream of consciousness novel
Prey on the Prowl - A Crime Novel
Onto the stage - Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays
Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (Non-fiction)
Bhagvad-Gita: Treatise of self – help (A translation in verse)
Sundara Kãnda - Hanuman‘s Odyssey (A translation in verse)

Dedicated to
VV Rao my soul mate
PN Murty the friendly cousin
KB Bhaskar my computer guru
for their support of my literary cause.

Chapter headings
Book One, Artha and Kama,
1. Party Gone Sour
2. Trauma at Tihar
3. Mind of the Maligned
4. Twist at Tis-Hazari
5. Trial in Camera
6. Dilemma of Qualms
7. Moment of Reckoning
8. End within end
9. Vestiges of Prestige
10. High on Rebound
11. Bellows of Delhi
12. Dicing with Life
13. Spidering Spadework
14. Loss to Order
15. Daring the Fate
16. Victims of Deceit
17. Baring the Soul
18. Garland of Guilt.
Book Two, Dharma and Moksha
1. Bliss of Being
2. Collage of Crime
3. Domain of the Devil
4. Renaissance of Life
5. Sprouts of Love
6. Despair of Hope
7. Turn at the Bend
8. Amity of Empathy
9. Day to Remember
10. Spirituality of Materialism
11. Sense of Reincarnation
12. Epilogue.

Book One - Artha and Kama

Party Gone Sour

That New Year's Eve, all the nouveau riche of New Delhi seemed to have gathered at the
Misty Nest in their ubiquitous wear. While women wore designer dresses, men turned up in
safari suits. Hosting them at their grand dwelling in the Defense Colony were the Gautams,
Prabhu and Sneha. By the time the last guest was hugged in welcome, Gautam‘s silk kurta
and Sneha‘s mink coat were truly crumpled. Augmenting the warmth of their bonhomie was
the Glenfiddich with soda. In time, while the lure of the Scotch drove many into the lap of
Bacchus, the allure of Venus enticed others to ogle at the desirable. But, above all, it was
Gautam‘s good-humored banter and Sneha‘s sensuous charm that lent aura to that
midnight rendezvous.
When the New Year was an hour away in its coming, what with the inebriated becoming
tardy in their tangos, the going got really bawdy. As Sneha too got into the act, there was a
virtual riot for a round with her. When someone went overboard to bottom pinch her, she
paid back with a belly punch that regaled the gathering.

As the gigantic clock was all set to halve the night, the antique chandeliers were put off.
When the radium hands went straight up on the dial, the ribaldry reached a new low on the
floor. At that, as the Gautams goaded all to raise their hands to fold out the year on hand,
the boozers struggled to get on to their feet to welcome the year in the offing. But, for its
part, the antique piece welcomed the incoming year with the first of its twelve chimes that
reverberated in that sprawling banquet hall.

In the prevailing darkness, the euphoria that followed led to a fresh round of bear-hugs
amongst the sexes before the stewards switched on the chandeliers as though to let those
bear witness to the goings on. As if that translucence showed the revelers the reality of life,
sanity was restored in that exuberant setting, and soon the pangs of hunger made the
gathering scamper for the buffet of varied cuisines, brought from the capital‘s five-star
restaurants.

When the hosts went up to the table to pick up their plates, a steward alerted Gautam to an
urgent telephone call. Soon, seeing her man turn all pale, Sneha made her way to him in
apprehension. When Gautam made her privy to their unfolding tragedy in an undertone,
Sneha nearly swooned into his arms. The news of Suresh Prabhu, the heir to their business
empire, hauled up in the lock-up was enough to unnerve her. That he was booked for rape
and murder as well ravaged her soul no end. In her state of shock, she was unable to
comprehend what Gautam mumbled into her ear to lift up her spirits.

Having realized that they were attracting undue attention, Gautam led his wife into the
anteroom, leaving the gathering with a free rein on the rumor mill. The breaking news, set
in motion by someone who had eavesdropped on the hosts‘ conversation, gained
circulation with understandable exaggeration. And there followed an intense debate about
the eventual outcome of the current indictment that led to the Gautams‘ predicament. The
indignant gathering, in one tone, roundly censured the hosts for the fall of their only
offspring. For once, everyone seemed to agree that loose morals would only bring ruin in
the end, even for the rich and famous. Of course, even the mighty of the world are bound
to fail on the false path, so emerged the consensus. Even those who professed closeness to
the Gautams maintained that they knew all along that things would come to this pass with
Suresh, sooner than later.

Such are the ways of the world that the lows of life would turn the admirers into critics,
and what is worse; make the naive speak as the know-all.

Closeting with Sneha, Gautam assured her that he would pull out all the stops to free
Suresh in no time. But Sneha was terrified that the magnitude of the indictment might be
beyond the endurance of their son. In spite of her awareness of their political clout and the
loopholes of law, her sixth sense gave a dissenting note, making her apprehensive about the
possibility of her son coming clean out of this messy case. But as hope coupled with her
confidence in her go-getter man calmed her nerves a little, Gautam led her back into the
banquet hall.

When the besieged couple resurfaced, what with everyone feigning camaraderie and
volunteering help, hypocrisy seemed to rule the roost on the human stage. As if to show up
the fallacy of human sympathy, appeared malice to induce innuendoes about the perceived
closeness of Sneha with the powers that be.

'Why, in this topsy-turvy,‘ said a naughty one, ‗her leeway is bound to come in handy, won‘t
it?‘

Not to be left out, curiosity too entered the arena to tie the crowd to the unfolding drama.
When the hosts tried to make light of the incident as but a storm in the teacup, the guests
maintained that they would not desert the ship in the storm. With his appeals for a
premature adieu falling on deaf ears, Gautam left for South Extension with an entrapped
feeling. Thereafter, preyed upon by her guests, Sneha remained a prisoner in her own
palace.

When Gautam in a dilemma reached the South Extension police station, as Pramod Rawal,
the Station House Officer (SHO), received him reverentially, he was a little relieved. But as
the SHO made him privy to the incriminating evidence gathered against his son, Gautam
was in a spot all again.

That very night at ten, one Saurav Swaroop came to the police station to lodge a ‗missing
person‘ complaint. A worried Swaroop told an impatient Rawal that his daughter Shanti
hadn‘t returned home yet though it was her wont not to stay out after seven. Worried over

her life and limb, said Swaroop, he had contacted all those he should including his family
friend Sohan Singh, the Circle Inspector (CI). At that, Rawal became alert and almost got
into a saluting posture. The CI, Swaroop claimed, had advised him to take the matter to
Rawal, the SHO on duty.

But, knowing the proclivities of his flock only too well, Singh left nothing to chance, and
thus mobilized a force to search for Shanti. It was past ten, when a patrol party intercepted
a speeding Mercedes at Mehrauli. As the teen at the wheel betrayed his unease, the Police
saw the need for a thorough search of the limousine. And when they found the body of a
woman in the back seat they were truly aghast. But, as the distraught lad revealed his
identity, the cops were really dumbfounded. Having led the accused to the police station,
they revealed the identity of the arrested to Rawal. Without any coercion, Suresh revealed
that he had kidnapped the girl with the idea of raping her. While pleading that he had no
intention to harm her, he confessed to having killed her under extreme provocation.

As feared by Rawal, the victim turned out to be Shanti Swaroop. And this unwelcome
development irked him for he feared that the vengeful Singh might brutalize the brat,
leaving him to fend for himself with a lock-up death. And the rest at the police station felt
that in spite of his impeccable pedigree, Suresh was in for an unimaginable trouble.

An uncanny manipulator of the system that he was, Rawal thought it fit to inform Gautam
before all else. After all, wouldn‘t Gautam involve the top brass to deter the CI from laying
his hand on the lad? Besides, there is much to gain by helping the rich, isn‘t it? It was, thus,
that Gautam‘s arrival lightened the cop‘s burden while raising his hopes as well. But his
countenance to Gautam‘s suggestive glances seemed to convey that the accused might not
be able to get away for once. Given his closeness to the Swaroops, after all, the CI can be
expected to be averse to hushing up the murder case. Besides, to splash the scandal in the
making, the press-wallahs had already rushed back to ‗Stop Press‘.

―Saab, I've done my best in this ticklish case,‖ said Pramod Rawal. ―And the rest is in the
CI‘s hands.‖

―Thank you Rawalji,‖ said Gautam enticingly, ―but don't I know how the system works.
Why, you are the king-pin here, aren‘t you? I know you realize that I will put my wealth on
line for my son‘s release.‖

―Saab, as I told you, Singhsaab has taken a personal interest in this case,‖ said Rawal feeling
sad that he couldn‘t avail of the chance of his lifetime. ―If only it were in my hands, I
would've surely given it a different twist.‖

―But still… ‖

―Saab, you better pull the strings at the top to see that your boy is not troubled by any,‖
said Rawal trying to ingratiate himself to Gautam. ―Well, I'll call up the CIsaab only after
you fix up things. And you too can speak to him a little later. After all, courtesy wouldn‘t

spoil, will it? Be assured, I'll not let a fly come near your boy. Why, I'll treat him as my own
son.‖

―Thank you, Rawalji,‖ said Gautam as he dialed the Police Commissioner's residential
number. ―You may know I‘m not the one to slight those who help me.‖

When Rawal in relief led him to Suresh, finding his son shell-shocked in the lock-up,
Gautam himself was shaken to the core. When the son broke down seeing his father, the
father could not hold back his tears either. But realizing that his nerves would unnerve
Suresh even more, Gautam decided to put on a brave face.

To the approving nods of Rawal, Gautam averred that it was no more than a case of
juvenile delinquency, and thus the courts were bound to treat it likewise. After all, there
was no need for Suresh to worry over much for the sentence was going to be light. And to
address his son‘s troubled psyche as well, the father showed an understanding to his
misdemeanor. And to assuage his son‘s apprehensions on account of Sneha‘s absence,
Gautam said that she was hell-bent on accompanying him and that it was he who dissuaded
her from coming. Anyway, it was difficult for any mother to go through all that and in his
situation; it would be delicate for Suresh as well to face his mother. Gautam tried to inject a
dosage of optimism into his depressed son with the assurance that all would end well as he
would line up a battery of ace lawyers to free him from his predicament.

In spite of his own enthusiasm, as Suresh remained gloomy, Gautam feared that his son
might sink into depression. And to avert its happening, he thought that he should spring
into action without any loss of time. But on second thoughts, he felt it prudent to wait for
Sohan Singh‘s arrival. In time, when the fuming Singh made his appearance, Gautam
needed all his suave to plead mercy for his son. However, it was Suresh‘s countenance that
softened Singh‘s ire and that made Gautam heave a sigh of relief. Thus, leaving Suresh to
Rawal‘s care, Gautam rushed to draft in Vijay Mehrotra, the eminent criminal lawyer.

In that nocturnal briefing, Mehrotra heard Gautam with all the sympathy due to a valued
client‘s predicament. But in the end, he duly showed Gautam the tight spot into which his
brat had put himself in. When the desperate father said money shouldn‘t be a constraint,
the wily advocate assured that he would apply his mind to judicially undo his son‘s
wrongdoing, of course, at the first hearing itself. Carried away by his own conviction,
Mehrotra even dismissed the whole thing as no big deal at all. Nevertheless, he said that
the Gautams would have some bad press to contend with to start with. But then, public
memory being proverbially short, he averred, they would be able to put all this behind in
no time. In the meantime, said Mehrotra, all that the Gautams needed to do was to remain
calm, and loosen their purse strings to buy justice for their son.

And to make a skeptical Gautam feel at ease, Mehrotra sketched the contours of the
countervailing defense against the weight of the incontrovertible evidence. At the end of
the briefing, impressed with Mehrotra‘s methods, Gautam was sure that an unconditional
acquittal for Suresh was on hand. Assured of the likely twist of justice in the trial court,

Gautam in relief headed home in his Rolls Royce. But soon, his apprehension about the
imminent fallout of it all on his life and his wife‘s times dampened him no end.

‗How thin is the line between glory and infamy!‘ thought Gautam sinking in the back seat.
‗Doesn‘t it seem thinner than the second‘s hand that splits the time frame at every turn?
The shine of the year gone by and the shame of the one on hand, oh, what a contrast they
make! How all those guests so welcome at the dusk seem unwelcome even before it is
dawn! But, how the course of the discourse at the Misty Nest might have turned after all
that! Oh, the ugly turn of events, are they any less embarrassing for the guests? Maybe
some of them could be gleeful as well, won‘t they? Indeed, how life could turn on its head
overnight! Would Sneha ever be able to cope up with all this? And don‘t we need to
camouflage the scandal before it ceases to interest? Well, one needs to be thick-skinned to
brave it all. Thank God, I‘m up to it anyway. It‘s as if life had prepared me to face this day!‘

When Gautam reached Misty Nest, he found it inundated by the neighbors as well. As
everyone rushed up to him in the portico itself, he tried to make it up by alleging that his
rivals had falsely implicated an innocent Suresh. It was easy to see, he said with his
trademark composure, all this was to scandalize his family and ruin his reputation in the
same vein. It was like hitting two birds with the same stone. But he assured them
nonchalantly that he would come up trumps after all, the indomitable fighter that he was.
Apologizing for having spoiled the party, he got rid of them all one by one by bidding
goodbye.

Though the Gautams felt relieved for having seen the back of their guests, yet they were
overwhelmed by the tragedy that befell on them, and that denied them even a wink all
night. If anything, the dawn made it worse for them as the glare of the scandal splashed in
the newspapers irrevocably blurred their vision for days to come.

As the reportage of the crime, dubbed as Mehrauli Murder Case, tended to bring the
background of the accused into focus, it irked the Gautams no end. What with the
condemnation coming thick and fast from all quarters, it soon turned into a nightmare for
them. One newspaper went overboard, suggesting that the Gautams too may be tried as
the abettors of the crime for a lack of their brat‘s bringing up. Then and only then, averred
the eloquent editorial, that the country‘s courts would be perceived as concerned with
social justice.

But what kept the news alive for weeks on end was its potential to embarrass the ruling
party for its patronage of the Gautams. Thus, in time, it all turned out to be a trial by the
media, well before the case was committed to the session‘s court. As the crime caught the
public imagination as well, the investigative journalists worked overtime to pull out
skeletons from the Misty Nest‘s closets. The competitive yellow journalism that followed,
tarnished the fair name of the Gautams, and shamed them in the process. Such was the
media one-upmanship that even a magazine dubbed the decade-old general insurance claim

of the Gautams as fraudulent while a tabloid insinuated that Sneha had all along promoted
Gautam‘s business interests by entrusting her charms to the care of men who mattered.

It was only time before the women‘s groups joined the fray demanding justice to the
victim‘s soul with a rope to the culprit‘s throat. The religionists, for their part, lamented
over the depravity of the youth and attributed the same to the lack of faith in God. Of
course, the conformists raised the decibels of the debate by deriding the baneful influence
of the alien lifestyle on the age-old culture. The social scientists, as though not to lag
behind, attributed the rise and fall of the Gautams to the deteriorating value system in the
society of the day. The political pundits, however, attributed the rise of Gautam Prabhu to
the position of power and prestige to the perils of the License Permit Raj. That he was on
the verge of being nominated by the party in power to the Rajya Sabha, they averred,
underscored the inimical politico-business nexus that was in place. And what a peril that
posed to the nascent Indian democracy was anybody‘s guess. But, waiting in the wings, the
human rights activists made no noise till then. It seemed as if they were hoping that the
accused would be sentenced to death to enable them to get on to the centre stage.
Whatever, well before the scandal ceased to make news, the remarkable transformation of
Gautam Prabhu, a former Engineer of the Public Works Department, into the most
influential lobbyist in New Delhi became a matter of common appreciation.

In the mid-fifties, it was said, Gautam, with a ravishing wife and a burning ambition to
make it big in life came to New Delhi from Andhra Pradesh. Having mastered Hindi
meticulously and cultivating people methodically, he soon came to specialize in wheeling
and dealing. Sneha Gautam, who eventually made waves on the cocktail circuit,
nevertheless, made her debut with her Sneha Travels. Dazzling her influential clientele,
soon enough, she reached far and wide in the travel world. But that was not all. Combining
her unquestionable charms and questionable morals, she laid the foundation for the edifice
of her husband‘s global empire. It was like she was the spark that ignited Gautam‘s
ambition to make it to the zenith of wealth.

Having begun life in a by lane of Karol Bagh, the Gautams soon set their eyes on the
avenues of Defense Colony, only to dominate its landscape in the end. Their palatial
bungalow, evocatively named Misty Nest, became the owner‘s pride and the neighbors‘
envy, indeed of Lutyen‘s Delhi. Sadly for the Gautams though, and deservedly so as many
thought, the veil of respectability that shrouded their vulnerability lay tattered. And that
unmistakably exposed their shameful visages to the public gaze.

Owing to the fear of compromising their own reputation in their company, their former
friends started distancing themselves from the fallen couple. What with the prospect of
their only son ending up on the gallows staring in their face, troubled and shamed, the
Gautams went into a cocoon in their Misty Nest. Moreover, used as they were to the hustle
and bustle of life, the informal boycott in place seemed to weigh down heavily upon their
social spirit.

Thus, in time, as the make-believe world they had built around them came crashing down,
the Gautams remained in seclusion in their duplex dwelling. But, it was from that very
setting, until not so long ago, that the Gautams had mesmerized the socialites of the
country‘s capital, and strolled like colossuses in its portals of power.

Trauma at Tihar

When Suresh Prabhu was produced before the metropolitan magistrate, he appeared
disjointed. That was the day after his arrest, and as he looked traumatized, Vijay Mehrotra
sprang up with alacrity. Seizing the chance to corner the prosecution, he accused the police
of having tortured Suresh to extort that incriminating admission. And in the end, he
dubbed the confessional statement as but a dubious document. Whatever, as the indicted
appeared incoherent, and since Rawal too showed no inclination for his continued
detention, the magistrate sent Suresh on remand to Tihar.
Though Gautam pulled the strings to ensure his smooth stay at the gaol, Suresh found it
hard to face his lot. However, sensing that the accused was insensibly sinking into
depression, in time, the jail doctor sent an SOS for psychiatric care. In the specialist
counseling of Dr. Prakash Gupta that followed, Suresh unfolded his schizothymic mindset
that baffled even the expert. At length, the specialist was able to place the bits and pieces of
Suresh‘s troubled mind in the jigsaw of his psychic frame thus:

From his early childhood, Suresh had craved for his mother‘s affection but had to settle for
ayahs‘ attentions. Upwardly mobile by the time he turned three, Sneha had no time for the
apple of her eye. After all, she was engaged with her business during the day and partying
in the evenings. But the veritable toy world that Gautam erected at home for him, gave
Suresh a false sense of belonging. Thus, having grown up materially fulfilled but
emotionally deprived, he had a bewildered childhood.

Whatever, his insatiate longing for the maternal love insensibly snowballed into an Oedipus
complex in his adolescent mind. It was in that psychic state, fond of his mother but
deprived of her affection, he was beset with a love-hate feeling for her. Well, this emotional
disturbance inexorably sought sexual turbulence for his adolescent company. Gradually, all
that afflicted his psyche and that induced aberrations in his libido.

Besides, the emotional void of his upbringing made him vulnerable to the sensual
distractions of adolescence. Devoid of the paternal discipline and deprived of the maternal
affection, he lacked the psychic barrier needed to keep the coarseness of the Delhi‘s
abrasive culture at bay. It was, thus, the metro‘s insensitive ethos insensibly impinged upon
his impressionable mind. And that drove him into the company of the spoilt brats at the
Don Bosco. The delinquent life he happened to lead thus turned him insensitive to the
decencies of life. It was only time before his bitterness with his self reached the pitch and

that made him defiant to the discipline at the school. And his wayward ways led to his
rustication from the school that even Gautam‘s pull could not help rescind.

But the slight he felt at the rebuke of his teacher at his own misdemeanor outraged his ego.
His hurt psyche that saw the teacher as the cause of his plight sought to get even with him.
No less, the derision the incident invited incited him to avenge himself. The scheming for
revenge that he indulged in exposed his troubled mind to criminal cunning. After mapping
the teacher‘s movements, he chose the moment to contrive an accident with his
motorcycle. The vicarious pleasure he derived in flooring his victim, and then seeing him
writhe in pain, surpassed his sense of vengeance but surprised the vestiges of his
sensitivities.

Though the teacher narrowly escaped death, the needle of suspicion that tilted towards him
under the weight of motive gave him his first brush with the law, and the Gautams their
first taste of a scandal. But thanks to the parental clout he narrowly escaped landing up in a
Borstal School. But the aggrieved academia‘s unrelenting opposition to his reprieve closed
the doors of the elitist schools on him.

While Gautam was aghast at the setback, Sneha felt distressed about his future. But,
preoccupied as they were with their own lives, they failed to summon the required
imagination to amend his character. The neighbors who felt outraged at his conduct
though barred their kids from mixing with him. But soon, they all mellowed, seemingly
disarmed by his handsome looks and affected manner. But it was Gautam‘s largesse to help
some school of lesser eminence build a swanky structure on its campus that helped Suresh
avoid the tag of a school dropout. Soon, as the Gautams were back in their make-believe
world, there was none to mend the disheveled mind of their son. And that left the troubled
boy to fend for himself.

Amidst the middle-class crowd at the unheralded school, he turned supercilious and
became a bully in due course. But when he finished his schooling, his mediocre aggregate
became a handicap for Gautam to get him inducted into any professional college of some
standing. However, owing to Sneha‘s connections, Suresh managed to find himself on the
rolls of the prestigious St. Stephen‘s. Yet he felt that his parents had gone to lengths to
keep him in the college not to cut a sorry figure for themselves on his account. It hurt him
even more that they, having ignored his interests all along, should turn desperate to
buttress his worth only to shore up their sagging image. All that made him feel that the way
to get even with his parents, especially his mother, for his hitherto neglect was to get
spoiled even more.

All the same, the accentuation of his sexuality imparted a carnal color to the canvas of his
curiosity. It didn‘t take long for the deep attraction he always felt for his mother to turn
into a vague sexual love for her. With each passing day, his Oedipus psyche sought sexual
gratification in her possession, which in time became his sole obsession. So he tried to
come closer to her on the sly but as he found her ever preoccupied, his frustration

inculcated a feeling of vengeance against her. Thereby, he turned roguish at every turn to
hurt her in every conceivable way.

When he noticed his mother‘s uninhibited manner with men, what with the outrage his
jealousy induced in him, he began resenting her even more. But, the desire he spotted in
the male eyes for her seemed to enhance his own craving for her in weird ways. As he
insensibly focused on her, he noticed her flirtations with all and sundry. And that made
him envious of them and hurtful of her. Thus, driven by jealousy, and compelled by
curiosity, he came to spying on his own mother.

The first time he had seen her leading a stranger into her private room that was next to his
own, he feared the worst and wanted to probe further. Using his ingenuity, he stealthily
embedded peeping and hearing devices at vantage points in her room. Making sure that he
managed to camouflage them from her casual vision, he lay in wait to espy her escapades.

That afternoon, as she moved in with a young guy, he went up to his observatory in
anticipation. Oh, what was in the offing for his voyeuristic delight was beyond his
adolescent fantasies! Admiring the youth for his manliness, she enslaved him in her ardent
embrace. Gripping him to gauge what was on offer, she was profuse in her praises.
Reaching for his lips eagerly, she savored them passionately. As the guy became all eager,
she turned a tease to rein him in. When he went on his knees in submission, she pressed
him to her crotch as if in triumph. When he shoved in his head between her thighs, she
dropped her pallu over him as if to secure his ardor. When he pulled out her sari at her
naval, she unbuttoned her blouse seductively. As he untied her lehanga, she removed her
brassieres to his delight. Even as he was ogling at her nudity, no less eager to espy his
essence, she undressed him with urgency. But as he sought to possess her, she subdued
him into cunnilingus. Maybe, embarrassed at her becoming a foul mouth and as if to cease
being clamorous, she herself took to fellatio.

Though the mother's wantonness affronted the son, yet her amorousness thrilled his own
romanticism. But, the man‘s surging passion on her urging frame offended the son's sense
of possessiveness. And, when the mother let that man penetrate her, the son felt as if she
was being pushed out of his own heart. What's worse, her sexual surge leading to her
orgasm left the son with a feeling of betrayal by his own beloved. Whatever, as her
sexuality excited him sensually, her coital satiation with another male left him sullen. Above
all, her moral degradation compounded by her lustful expletives distressed his materialistic
sensibilities.

While his sense of parentage was belittled by her immoral ways, his self-righteousness too
was troubled by his own sense of guilt. And that left him indignant. All the same, he was
puzzled by the fact that his mother could indulge herself with relish with another male, in
spite of her apparent affection for his father. Unable as he was to come to terms with the
reality of her life, he was left wondering about her motives behind that sexcapade.
Whatever, he couldn‘t help but pity his father for having been cuckolded, and on that score

he came to experience a simmering contempt for him. The mixed feelings his voyeurism
induced in him had resulted in accentuating his love hate for his mother. While her
lovemaking that he watched erased the borders of his own filial sensitivities, his Oedipus
desire turned into an incestuous lust to possess his own mother. He found that, the innate
shame her conduct infused in him was at odds with his own craving for her curvaceous
frame. While the son in him felt ashamed, the man in him was torn between his lust and
hurt. As a way of resolution for his conflicting emotions, he thought of humiliating her by
surprising her in her indulgence.

As he came to spy on her, soon he saw her spiriting a hunk into the room on the sly. And
that distressed him even more for the change of her mate symbolized the debauchery of
her soul. He felt as if he had lost his esteem to her as a lover, and wished to leave the slut
of a mother alone. But the allure of her frame and his urge to voyeur her fare pulled him to
the post. When he had seen her mounting the man, his sense of deprivation goaded him to
catch her red-handed. But his desire to see her reach the climax capped his own intent. At
the end of her rendezvous, as he found himself drained as well, he resented his own
impotence to affront her in her misdeed.

After a couple of aborted moves to shame her in the act and having got addicted to the
voyeuristic joy he derived from her indulgences, he gave up the idea altogether. However,
he ceased to see her as his mother and came to view her as a beddable woman. In his state
of perversion, supplanting his self for her mate in the familiar setting his voyeurism
provided, he was wont to daydream for long. Consumed by his own urge to possess her, he
was outraged by her sexual transgressions. It was this impotent rage that led him to suffer
in eternal shame. The effect of this underlying cynicism affected his subconscious to
trouble his conscience.

As neither masturbations nor wet dreams could bring him release, he opted for paid sex for
relief. In his union with the harlots, even as he fantasized his mother, he visualized her
humiliation in their subjugation. But, whenever a whore turned out to be aggressive,
reminiscent of his mother‘s self-assertion with her mates, he suppressed them no end. It
was thus he came to see his exploits in the brothels as his means of revenge on his mother.
But, soon, he realized the hollowness of his revenge brought about by his generous doles
to the whores for their extra favors. That he had to pay for what his mother offered to her
mates on a platter made him feel defeated even more. And that made him dejected no end.

With the passage of time, as his need to vindicate himself by his own machismo became
compelling, he contrived to seduce a girl on the campus and coaxed her into sex with the
promise of marriage. But, the falsity of his own duplicity denied him the pleasure of the
conquest. Thus, feeling defeated in his bid to humiliate his mother, he came to hating
women, painting them all with the brush of her dark character.

Experiencing physical attraction for the fair sex but nursing emotional apathy for them, he
thought of rape to enjoy and hurt them at the same time. It was only time before he looked

for his prey and realized that housewives would be a better bet. Once, he forced himself
upon an unsuspecting woman and that readily catered to the conflicting emotional needs of
his schizothymic psyche. While her pleadings to be spared of her humiliation gave him the
feeling of an arbiter of her shame, the resistance he encountered in the face of his assault
appealed to his sense of combat. But eventually, as he could subdue her, he felt elated by
the strength of his own libido. All that made him feel as though he was doubly rewarded
for his violation. Also, his perception that the woman coalesced after all, catered to his
sense of virility. But, above all, having enjoyed the fare as long as it lasted, her picturing the
sex as rape buttressed his cynicism about women. So he ended up where he began.

The feeling that the woman tried to wash her own guilt with a profusion of her crocodile
tears seemed to wipe out his own sense of humiliation brought about by his mother‘s
misconduct. Thus, while the subjugation of an unwilling woman satisfied his sense of
revenge on his mother, the humiliation he could heap on the hapless dame addressed the
hurt of his troubled mind. The warning he delivered in the end to the vanquished ‗to keep
shut or else‘ seemed to seal her shame while signaling his own triumph.

Having enjoyed the fruits of his first trespass, he set himself on the hazardous course of
violating the fair sex. Nevertheless, owing to his victims‘ fear of scandal, he came out
unscathed in umpteen violations. And, for the lack of repercussions, he came to see the
lane of rape as but his thoroughfare of vindication. It was with impunity that he began to
satiate his lust, raping the women he fancied. Insensibly thus he turned out to be a habitual
rapist ever on the prowl.

That fateful evening, he happened to see Shanti who resembled Sneha in every manner.
Taking her as Godsend, he felt excited at the prospect of what was in the offing. Raving
about her thus, he lost no time in tricking her into his car. Driving her in the top gear to his
father‘s Mehrauli House, he raped her with all his pent-up fury, as though she were his
mother herself. In the end, as was his wont, while he sought to see his ultimate triumph in
her humiliation, Shanti, besides calling him SOB, scorned him with all her contempt. As
her remark pushed his dichotomic psyche to its edge, he tripped the line. As though to
snuff out the very source of his humiliation, he strangled her with all the hate he had been
nursing for his mother.

As she lay motionless, he was gripped by a sense of revulsion for having hurt the woman
he enjoyed. Confounded by his own hurt, he made love to her body as though to bring her
back to life. Yet, as the guilt of his ingratitude gave him no respite, he cursed his mother
for the crime he had committed. And having looked at her body for long with
self-remorse, so as not to shame her soul further, he wrapped it in her sari. Though he
gathered his wits to shift the body into the car, yet he had no idea what to do with it.
However, as he started driving slowly, survival instinct made him look out for an ideal
locale to dump the corpse. Before he could act, he sighted the police on patrol from some
distance and so tried to speed past them.

While the psychiatric care that followed at Tihar enabled Suresh position his past in its
proper perspective, the reality of the present psyched his fears about his future.

‗Would I be hanged?‘ he dreaded at the prospect often and prayed in turn. ‗Oh God, why
not be a lifer?‘

Mind of the Maligned

While Suresh turned to God in the gaol, Mehrotra answered his prayers in his study. As
Gautam gave him a blank cheque, Mehrotra began to lay the path for Suresh‘s acquittal.
Having tutored Suresh about the nuances in retracting his statement in the court, the
learned lawyer had outlined the line of the defense during the impending trial. The accused
was made privy to the fact that with befitting bait, the Swaroops were caught in the defense
web to become hostile witnesses in the court. That would help the defense to portray the
trial as an attempt by the Gautams‘ detractors to malign them and victimize their son. A
cricket buff that he was, Mehrotra added that the Swaroop doosra would baffle the public
prosecutor. Oh, how the fellow was itching to score!
As it‘s the personal conviction that enables one to come up with a convincing performance
in the court, Mehrotra mapped the contours of the escape route to Suresh thus: The
Swaroops would testify under oath that the accused and the deceased were steady for long
and were to be betrothed soon. That would enable the defense to shift the murder onto
some unknown hands and unable to retain the crease of motive, the prosecution would get
stumped in the process.

Gautam would stand witness to the ‗fact‘ that the lovebirds went to his Mehrauli House to
amuse themselves. They were to return to the Misty Nest in time for the surprise
announcement of their engagement on the New Year's Eve. But, as luck would have it,
instead of the Gautams announcing their son‘s engagement to the assemblage, it was Rawal
who broke the incredible news to them.

The Swaroops would play ball by pleading that they were forced to complain to the police
though they were aware that Shanti went out with Suresh. They would make out that some
thugs descended upon their house at around nine that evening. That was, as they were
preparing to leave for the Misty Nest for the momentous event. And it was that gang
which forced Saurav to prefer that damned ‗missing person‘ complaint at the South
Extension police station. With his wife held as hostage, Saurav would aver that he had to
fall in line, never mind his qualms. Thus, under the pain of death to his wife, he preferred
that missing person complaint, designed by Gautam‘s detractors to implicate his innocent
son. Being aware of his closeness to Sohan Singh, and to keep him off the track, the
intruders had forced Saurav to mislead him as well.

Then, it would be left for Suresh to concoct a murder story thus: At around nine, as Shanti
and he were getting into his Mercedes at the Mehrauli House they were accosted by five

masked men. While three gagged him, the remaining began strangling Shanti. Even as he
struggled to free himself to save her, they stuffed out her life before his hapless self. Before
they made their escape, they warned him not to leave the farmhouse before ten. In case he
ventured out before the deadline, they told him to prepare himself for an ambush.

Stunned out of his wits, Suresh was stay put as ordered. When it was past ten, he headed
home with the body of his beloved. Shortly after he hit the road distraught, making it a
double jeopardy for him, the patrol police intercepted him. How his misery multiplied and
his tragedy compounded! Though he tried to explain to those who detained him, they were
in no mood to listen to him. Simply, they hauled him up for rape and murder on
conjecture. What is worse, to save themselves the bother of finding the real culprits, the
police saw an easy way out to close the case by extracting the confession from his hapless
self.

Mehrotra assured Suresh that such a line of defense would make it an open and shut case
of his innocence. If anything, the onus of apprehending the 'real' culprits would shift on to
the police. Besides, pressured by the women‘s groups, even if their plea for a payroll were
to be rejected, nothing would be left to chance to bring about a speedy trial to get a ready
acquittal. Thus, said Mehrotra, he laid a flat wicket for Suresh to bat on blindfolded.

Though hopeful of reprieve, yet Suresh despaired. Living hitherto under the shadows of
the gallows, he could not see beyond the noose. However, having been shown the end of
the dark tunnel, he began to worry about his dismal future.

Such is the irony of life that man tends to visualize dark clouds even while seeing the silver
lining.

‗What if I won‘t be free again?‘ Suresh began to brood. ‗Then, won‘t I rot in Tihar forever?
Why, for all my wayward ways, won‘t that make it just deserts for me? Were it an acquittal
even, Mehrotra‘s methods notwithstanding, who knows, the trial might drag on for ages.
Well, that would only confine me to this hole ruminating over his pep talk. And, what
about my life after release, that is, as and when that happens? Haven‘t the shadows of my
past darkened the prospects of my future? How could I ever survive the stigma of
calumny? Why did I allow myself to come to this pass? What a mess I have made of my
life!‘

As he recalled the nightmarish experience, he began to visualize the agony of Shanti. He
was shocked to realize that all along he had perceived her as the cause of his downfall.

‗Is it not proof enough for my depravity, if ever one were needed?‘ he thought
remorsefully. ‗Surely, she would have had her own dreams about life and could have nursed
her ambitions with hope. What villainy that I had put an end to her aspirations by stuffing
out her life itself! How unfair was life for her!‘

As the import of the tragedy from her angle began to sink in his imagination, he lamented
even more at the unfortunate end to her life. ‗Why had she to pay for my troubled psyche?‘

he thought in the hell of his cell. ‗Was it her fault that she happened to be a look-alike of a
sick man‘s mother? For all I know, her nature could juxtapose mom‘s character. How
ironical life is, in that it makes one pay for the mistakes of others! Why haven‘t judicial
errors sent many an innocent to the gallows? Oh, how many might have ended up in the
grave owing to murder by mistaken identity! Well, am I not paying for the sins of my
mom.‘

‗But, how am I to know why she did what she did,‘ he thought as he began to experience a
new empathy for his mother. ‗What was worse, she scandalized herself in the process. How
naive of me to have condemned her as if I were an infallible judge! Haven‘t I punished her
and myself as well, perhaps, her more than all? If not for me, her dirty linen would never
have come for a quick wash in the public. And my poor father has to endure the ignominy
and suffer in silence. What a loss of face for both of them! After all that eminence that is.
How they would be braving it out!‘

‗What did I gain by raping all those!‘ he continued as his focus shifted on to those whom
he had wronged. Transient release and enduring revenge, that‘s what I got, isn‘t it? But
then, the release was sullied by fear, and the revenge remained flawed, after all. As for the
sex itself, it was more of a mechanical motion than even a physical union, not to speak of
emotional integration. Where was the feeling of sensual intimacy that I had seen those guys
experience in mom‘s lovemaking? Well, my perverse psyche led me astray, only to cause
my ruin in the end! And how many women have I traumatized, by the way? Wonder, how
did I strangle the very woman whom I used for my sexual gratification? Not even animals
are known to kill their mates, do they? Didn‘t I turn worse than a beast then?‘

‗Didn‘t it all begin with my incestuous desire for mom, only to end up with blood on my
hands?‘ he continued his contemplation. ‗Won‘t Shanti‘s death haunt my soul forever?
Would the world ever let me forget my past! What about being normal in the company of
women? Is it left in me to fall in love, much less voice it again? Who would wed me after
all this? Even otherwise, would I be able to lead a normal married life? Given my troubled
psyche, would that be possible even if my wife were to be an understanding woman?
Would my burden of guilt let me ever erect for all that? Do I feel gripped of late? Oh no!
Would Shanti‘s curse keep me useless all my life?‘

‗Why did I abuse my life and theirs as well?‘ he continued in remorse. ‗Now that I see it all
in a fresh light, won‘t the lingering thought of their trauma torment me forever? It seems
insensitivity has its own advantages! But it is with the rungs of suffering that the ladder of
reform is built, isn‘t it? How wrong of me that I saw mom from the angle of my own
wants! How am I to know if my expectations of her attentions were unsound? How stupid
I was to grudge her on that count, and feel avenged by violating others! But, how distressed
was she seeing me in distress! How she cried her heart out as though to wash my sin off
my soul itself! Surely she loves me more than I ever thought she would.‘

As he thought about his mother in a maternal mode, he seemed to experience a change in
his understanding of her. ‗What‘s her fault, after all?‘ he thought melancholically. ‗She
might have had her own compulsions of life, couldn‘t she? How am I to know whether dad
had measured up to her want or not? Or, who knows, she was probably indulging herself
wantonly to satisfy his whim, or even to buttress his business, as the talk goes. Whatever it
was, after all, they have a right to lead their life the way they wanted to, don‘t they? Was it
the fault of the parents if their children measure them on the scale of uprightness? Why
should the onus be on the parents to live up to the pious images of them conjured up by
the children? How silly that children fashion yardsticks for their parents, especially for the
mother, without knowing what it is to be a grown-up! How fair is it for one to expect one‘s
mother to be asexual?‘

‗Oh God, if only I had the sense to understand then!‘ he thought in despair. ‗Would I have
developed all those negative feelings for the fair sex? No way, and surely I wouldn‘t have
inflicted sexual hurt on all those, leave alone killing poor Shanti! How could I ever fault
mom for her ways, when I violated women without qualms? If ever she comes to know
that my psyche got buggered because of her, would she ever forgive herself? At least, I
should spare her that last straw of guilt on her humiliated back. That much I owe to her.‘

‗Thank God, Dr. Gupta is not a loose talk,‘ he thought with a sense of relief. ‗I have his
word that he will keep it all to himself. Surely he wouldn‘t allow mom to get an inkling of
my predicament. Oh, how the press pictures her as a slut as if the rest of her ilk is nunnish!
Get caught, you're in the dock, if not, continue under the cloak. What irony scandal is!‘

‗Why not I turn a new leaf in my life, ironically on lease by Mehrotra‘s ruse?‘ he thought at
length. ‗What of the course correction then? Would I ever imagine hurting any in any
manner whatsoever? But would that do to lead a useful life? Well, it‘s constructive care that
might help erase the debilitating effects of my negative past. What about lending a helping
hand to the abused of the world? Maybe, eventually that might put me on the path of
redemption, won‘t it? God, give me the chance to live and have the conviction to make
that my mission in life. Why let me dangle by the rope that I strangled Shanti in sickness?
Why not put my life at stake to save another? Won‘t Thou grant me this one favor O
Lord?‘

Suresh‘s new found faith in the will of God made him take the maneuvers of Mehrotra
with a pinch of salt.

‗Won‘t his twisted means justify my upright ends?‘ he tried to probe the rights and wrongs
of the expected verdict. ‗Or would it be no more than a hoax? What of justice then? Whose
justice is it anyway, but that of the statute. And won‘t that vary from state to state! Isn‘t it
in itself a travesty of justice in our imperfect world? But then, who said that it is a just
world? If not, why should nature condemn one species as food for another species? What
justice is all that? Is it not absurd to suggest that man had evolved equitable laws while God
failed to do so? No denying that, my violations on them would have traumatized many, but

was it not my sick mind that was the cause of it all? What was worse, it was Shanti‘s ranting
that provoked me to resort to the crime. Yet her abuse would have been passé for many.
But given my psyche, that touched my raw nerve, didn‘t it? Whatever, how agonized I am
that I had unfairly caused her death! It‘s as if the courts can‘t account for the penitence of
the accused in meting out the punishment. Now that I‘m repenting, am I not entitled for a
reprieve?‘

‗After all, what should be an equitable punishment to a given crime?‘ he thought in the
same vein. ‗Well, it‘s the question that confronts societies. Didn‘t it appear logical for long
that the offender is subjected to the same hurt he inflicted upon the victim? But, hasn‘t a
tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye become out of tune with the sensibilities of our
times? A lost tooth or a blind eye would still keep life going for the victim and the violator
alike. Wouldn‘t the gallows for the murderer deprive life for them both? How to deal with
the crime and punishment within the boundaries of life and death is the moot point. Won‘t
that depend on the proclivities of the one who comes to dispense justice? How lucky, if my
case is heard by him who believes that life behind bars would meet the ends of justice. God
forbid what if it‘s the conviction of the one in the chair that the cause of justice demands
the throat of the culprit! Won‘t that make him or her murderer of sorts with the judicial
tool of a rope?‘

‗What could be the rationale behind the capital punishment!‘ he thought in despair. ‗What
is it that is sought to be gained by depriving me of my life? Are they not making out that
it‘s the rope to my throat that leads the victim‘s family to the realms of justice? If only my
death could resurrect Shanti, would not I have willingly walked up to the gallows by now?
And is it not a specious argument that Shanti‘s soul would not rest in peace if I am alive?
Does it not amount to vilification of her character for it implies the retributive nature of
her soul? Well, this public clamor for the capital punishment is nothing but the
manifestation of man‘s own savagery. I killed her when I lost my cool but in all calmness
these seek my death. How would the public ever grasp the nuances of a given violation to
air an opinion?‘

‗What could be the fear of the society to leave me alive?‘ he thought in the end. ‗If it seems
women wouldn‘t remain safe with me around, then why not I be jailed for life? Won‘t that
let women see the back of me while I may still look forward to whatever little life has to
offer me? If my repentance makes a better soul of me, why should I be prevented from
joining the mainstream all again? It‘s not that the planet is full of nice guys out to reach out
to the people at large! That way, how it gets lost on the law that the society has nothing
more to lose, and may even gain for my reformist zeal. Why, won‘t making me dangle by
the rope mean denying me the chance to change? More to the point, the society would be
deprived of a decent citizen that is after I would be through the jail drill. As I intend to
help the outraged, won‘t that amount to saving a life to serve some others? And that would
make my acquittal just in itself, wouldn‘t it? Thus, my urge to lead a useful life should make

Mehrotra‘s dubious methods for my acquittal upright. Would it not make a case of ends
justifying the means?‘

‗What if I am sent to the gallows after all that?‘ he couldn‘t help but think. ‗But then, aren‘t
there two sides to the same coin? In a way, is not death preferable to the life of a lifer with
all its attendant deprivations? Seen that way, death row is any day a better option for it
entails a short stay. What about the dread of climbing up the gallows? After all, it is the
love to live that lets man fear the noose. When one is reconciled to death, then it should be
much less a bodily pain than one might have endured in life, isn‘t it?‘

Twist at Tees Hazari

The concerned and the curious alike thronged to the gates of Tees Hazari to witness the
trial of the Mehrauli Murder Case. As the doors were thrown open that morning, everyone
jostled to reach the designated courtroom for a vantage position. The crowd was seemingly
dying to see the accused and his mother.
Partly addressing their curiosity, Gautam walked in with a posse of lawyers led by
Mehrotra. As they took much of the front row, the gathering, though felt let down by
Sneha‘s absence, looked forward to Suresh‘s arrival with bated breath. Thus, calm reigned
in the courtroom until the clock struck ten when Suresh was brought in. And agog with
excitement, the crowd rose as one man. The commotion continued for long with people
falling over each other for a better view of the handsome youth. Used as he was to the
trials involving celebrities, the daftari felt he had never seen such a disorder in the
courtroom before. But as he yelled out for order before ushering in Justice Ms. Sumitra
Choudhary, it was pin drop silence.

As the father and the son couldn‘t take their eyes off each other, the crowd could discern
the pathos of the former and the agony of the latter. In vain, Suresh‘s eyes sought for
Sneha, and Gautam‘s gaze seemed to solicit an understanding on her behalf. Before
Gautam could gesticulate to his son to relax, Justice Choudhary entered the arena to take
her exalted seat. Even as the assembly rose to a man to fulfill the norm, Suresh bowed to
her as though to his destiny. As the Justice took the chair, Pradeep Paranjape, the Public
Prosecutor, got up to present the case of the prosecution.

Having received her nod, Paranjape was unequivocal in his eloquent condemnation of the
accused.

―Ms. Justice, this is an open and shut case of kidnap, rape and murder, committed by the
accused, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, the vagabond son of the formidable Mr. Gautam Prabhu. In
this regard, I would like to draw the attention of this court to the F.I.R No. 420/1974 of
the South Extension police station, New Delhi. The written complaint of Mr. Saurav
Swaroop, the father of Ms. Shanti Swaroop, the murdered woman, is enclosed with the
F.I.R.

Ms. Justice might peruse from the Exhibit No. I that at 10 PM on 31 December 1974, Mr.
Saurav Swaroop went to the police station to lodge a ‗missing person‘ complaint regarding
the disappearance of his nineteen-year-old daughter Ms. Shanti. In the said complaint
received by Mr. Pramod Rawal, the Station House Officer, Mr. Swaroop had clearly stated
that his daughter, Ms. Shanti, habitually returns home by seven in the evening. But on that
fateful day, she failed to reach home even by nine. When he failed to trace her at any of the
likely places, he feared for her life at the worst and harm to her limb at the least. Then, he
went to the said police station to lodge a ‗missing person‘ complaint. A worried father that
he was, Mr. Swaroop sought the intervention of the police to help trace his daughter.
Considering the gravity of the law-and-order problem in our lawless metropolis, the police
went on overdrive to find out Shanti‘s whereabouts.

Past ten that night, a patrol party at Mehrauli noticed a speeding Mercedes, and signaled
the driver to stop. When the car came to a screeching halt, they found a dazed youth at the
wheel sounding incoherent on questioning. When the police resorted to a routine check, in
the back seat they saw a young woman in the sleeping posture. As the lad who identified
himself as Suresh Prabhu, s/o. Mr. Gautam Prabhu, failed to explain what was wrong with
his companion, the police naturally got suspicious. Upon his questioning, as the matter got
curiouser and curiouser, the police tried to wake up the girl to ascertain the situation. It was
then that they realized they had to contend with a murder case, and detained
the indicted as the prime suspect.

When Pramod Rawal, the SHO of the SE-PS, reached the place, he found that the
deceased resembled the girl in the photograph left behind by Mr. Swaroop. Thereafter, the
police acted as per the laid down procedures when Mr. Suresh Prabhu was apprehended
and the Mercedes with the body was moved to the SE-PS. Losing no time, the SHO sent
for Mr. Swaroop for identifying the body. As feared, Mr. Swaroop readily identified the
dead girl as his daughter, Ms. Shanti. In the meantime, the indicted too made a clean breast
of himself confessing that it was he who had raped and murdered her. He also owned up
his culpability in kidnapping her that very evening. The confessional statement of the
accused and the related documents form Exhibit No. II.

Ms. Justice may please peruse Exhibit No. III containing the forensic reports that
conclusively prove that the accused had assaulted and raped Ms. Shanti. That the semen of
the indicted was the same as that which was swabbed from the victim‘s vagina would prove
the incidence of penetration. That it was not a case of voluntary surrender on the part of
the deceased to the accused is proved by the fact that the former was badly bruised. All this
would establish beyond reasonable doubt that the victim resisted the indicted's molestation
bid before she succumbed to him against her will.

And the accused‘s guilt in the murder of Ms. Shanti is borne out by Exhibit No. IV. The
post-mortem report adduces that Ms. Shanti's death was caused by strangulation at around
09 PM on 31 December 1974, i.e. an hour or so before the indicted was apprehended
carrying her corpse in his car. Hence, the forensic proof of his raping her and the

circumstantial evidence of his murdering her that would incontrovertibly corroborate with
the confessional statement made out in his own hand of his own volition.

Thus, Ms. Justice, the detainment of the indicted with the victim‘s body, the forensic
reports confirming his violation of the victim, his confessional statement owing up his guilt
in the kidnap, rape and murder of the deceased besides the corroborative evidences of his
involvement in these crimes, together establish the culpability of the accused, Mr. Suresh
Prabhu in the kidnap, rape and murder of Ms. Shanti Swaroop on 31 December 1974.

It is submitted that it is the case of the prosecution that the guilt of the indicted is proved
without an iota of doubt, which is by far a better proposition than the dictum of beyond
reasonable doubt. Taking cognizance of these premeditated offences by a spoilt brat, the
court may deem it fit to convict the indicted and award him an exemplary punishment. It is
only thus the society could be ridden of the menace posed by this habitual offender who is
a criminal by his very instincts. If ever set free, given his savage mindset, he‘s bound to be a
scourge to the fair sex. Ms. Justice would agree that it in itself would be a miscarriage of
justice, which the court would like to avoid. That‘s all Ms. Justice.‖

As tutored, Suresh had pleaded not guilty and accused the police of extracting the
confession under the third degree. For better effect, he repeated the concocted story that
Mehrotra had helped him memorize at Tihar. As Shanti‘s father too went with the indicted,
and maintained that his complaint to the police was made under duress, the case of the
prosecution seemed to collapse. As though to drive home the last nail in the prosecution
coffin, Mehrotra got up triumphantly to sum up the inviolability of the defense‘s position.

―Ms. Justice, the averment of the victim‘s father before this honorable court that she was
all set to be betrothed to the indicted should be noted. Does it not give lie to the
prosecution‘s accusation of rape in the first place? Besides, it is preposterous for any to
suggest that the indicted murdered his own beloved, that too hours before they were to be
betrothed! It is submitted to this honorable court that there was no motive whatever for
the indicted to murder the deceased.

Though the forensic report confirms the victim‘s death by strangulation, it is worth noting
that it did not indicate any hand of the indicted in it. This aspect of the murder alone
would lend credence to the averment of the indicted that it was the handiwork of some
unknown miscreants. On the contrary, it exposes the shallowness of the prosecution that
seeks to condemn an innocent youth caught in the vortex of business rivalries. When it
comes to the bruises on the victim's body, decency demands one wouldn‘t probe them any
further.

As we all know, Mr. Gautam Prabhu, the father of the indicted, is a leading light of New
Delhi. It is a common knowledge that he was in line to get the coveted nomination to the
Rajya Sabha. The sordid episode of Ms. Shanti Swaroop‘s murder was a product of a
diabolical conspiracy of Mr. Gautam Prabhu‘s detractors out to hurt him politically and
otherwise too. In the prevailing cynicism, how does it matter if hitting the opponent below

the belt involves the murder of a young girl and foisting the crime on her lover? And the
way the yellow journalism targeted the indicted‘s mother for no fault of hers save her God
given charm! Won‘t that make one wonder whether it‘s a curse to be born a beautiful
woman? Well, who suffers from qualms anymore these days in besmirching the fair name
of a spirited woman, if only to make her man bite the political dust?‖

Mehrotra paused to let the woman in the judge develop empathy for the indicted's
tarnished mother.

―Ms. Justice would appreciate how all this might affect the psyche of the unfortunate son,‖
said Mehrotra resuming his argument. ―On top of it was the trial by the media, conducted
by the plants of the conspirators in the fourth estate. Hadn‘t the indicted stood condemned
already? And sadly, the reputation of an elite family was callously colored with infamy. It is
a travesty of justice that Mr. Gautam Prabhu‘s adversaries achieved what they wanted.
Why, his political career lay shattered and his personal image got tattered. Now it is left to
this honorable court at least to salvage the indicted‘s honor by setting him free forthwith.‖

As though riding a tide and carried away by his own rhetoric, the redoubtable Mehrotra
took on the law enforcing agencies in the same breath.

―The right thinking people ought to condemn the shady role the police played in this
sordid episode,‖ thundered Mehrotra. ―Their lazy surmises are being thrust upon this
honorable court as the results of a painstaking investigation. No civilized society should
feel safe under such a bunch of the custodians of law who subserve their conscience to the
dictates of the powers that be to implicate the innocent. Having failed to apprehend the
culprits who murdered Ms. Shanti Swaroop or out to protect the authors of the heinous
crime, the police have given the color of rape to consensual sex between two teenage
lovers on the verge marriage.

And the police, to either save their skin or to serve their political masters and/or both,
shamelessly made the indicted, the victim of the tragedy, as the villain of the piece in this
in this case. Whither went the conscience when he who had the misfortune to witness the
murder of his beloved was pictured as the perpetrator of the crime itself? Thus, Ms. Justice,
I implore upon this honorable court to dismiss this fabricated case foisted upon the
indicted with the contempt that it deserves. Ms. Justice may deem it fit to set Mr. Suresh
Prabhu free with due honor so that he could lead as dignified a life as possible under the
circumstances.‖

Bowing to the judge, Mehrotra had a supercilious stare at the dumbfounded Paranjape.
And then to the welcome gesture of a grateful Gautam and the muted congratulations of
his own juniors, he strolled like a colossus to take his seat. When Gautam looked at Suresh
with relief, the latter was confounded with mixed feelings. Though elated at the prospect of
an acquittal, Suresh was uneasy that he and others had to lie under oath for his reprieve. At
the same time, Paranjape‘s shoulders drooped, suggesting that he was out of depth to press
for a conviction. As though the despair of the prosecution got spread in the courtroom, it

was filled with murmurs of an inevitable acquittal. As the press-wallahs were excited about
the twist that the case took for bettering their copy, there came a turn to the proceedings
from an unexpected quarter.

In that state of willing suspension of disbelief, no one took note of a burka-clad woman
from the back row going near the sulking Paranjape. When she handed over some paper to
the public prosecutor, the gathering stood up as one man to see what was on hand. As
Paranjape poured over her note, the crowd whispered in wonderment whether it had
anything to do with the trial on hand. Noticing the nuances in his demeanor at every turn,
the gathering got expectant and waited with bated breath.

When an elated Paranjape jumped up to the judge to confabulate with her, even Gautam
felt nervous fearing the import of the intruder on the trial. As Paranjape confabulated with
Her Ladyship, from his body language Mehrotra sensed that the stranger could spell
trouble to the defense. And, Suresh too had a premonition that the woman could be one of
his victims who had come to testify against him.

Justice Ms. Sumitra Choudhary adjourned the hearing to the post-lunch session that
flummoxed the defense team and mystified the gathering. When Paranjape led the stranger
to the court chamber, Suresh envisioned his being led to the gallows. And it was conjecture
all around about the relevance of the intruder to the case on trial that she could be an
eyewitness to the crime who waited in the wings till the very end. That the trend of the trial
indicated an acquittal, she might have decided to stop the tide for the cause of justice, so
felt some. Thus, the expected drama of the post-lunch session whetted the appetite of the
public to the hilt. But, as things turned out, the gathering had to leave the courtroom
without satiation.

Trial in Camera

With Paranjape‘s plea for a trial in camera began the post-lunch proceedings in the Judge‘s
chambers. He averred that the witness was entailed to have her identity as well as her
deposition kept by the court away from the public. After all, he said, on her own, the
witness had come forward to help the cause of justice and thus serve the public interest.
Besides, he alerted the court about the delicate nature of her testimony and the likely
embarrassment the cross-examination could cause her. Having considered Paranjape‘s
pleas on merits and as Mehrotra had no precedents to quote against to poke his nose;
Justice Sumitra began the hearing in her chambers. Though the trial commenced soon
enough, that seemed an eternity to the accused.
When the stage was set for Paranjape to take the floor, he ordained the witness to remove
her burka. While Mehrotra tried to size up the young woman who emerged from the veil,
Paranjape tried to map the nuances of Suresh‘s demeanor.

―Don‘t you know who she is?‖ Paranjape asked Suresh.

―Objection Ms. Justice,‖ roared Mehrotra from his seat. ―If she‘s to further the
prosecution, the indicted has a right to know who she is and not the other way round.‖
―Ms. Justice,‖ said Paranjape spiritedly, ―the interests of justice would suffer if the
objection is sustained.‖
―You may proceed,‖ said Justice Sumitra.

―Have you ever met her before?‖ Paranjape asked Suresh menacingly.
Having realized the import of her appearance, Suresh was flabbergasted beyond belief.
Besides, he had no brief from Mehrotra either to tackle the ticklish tangle.

―Why not recall the road accident,‖ Paranjape seemed to prompt Suresh, ―in which you
nearly got killed?‖

―Oh, God, what a turn,‖ blurted out Suresh in spite of himself.
―Now you may make your statement,‖ Paranjape triumphantly turned to the eager woman.

―I have a few questions for her,‖ said Mehrotra to Justice Sumitra.
―You may proceed.‖

―What‘s your name?‖ asked Mehrotra hoping to catch the witness off guard.
―Don‘t I have the court‘s permission to keep it for myself?‖

―Well, where do you live?‖ Mehrotra asked the woman. ―I hope you would part with that
information at least.‖

―It's in New Delhi.‖
―How long have you been living here?‖

―Maybe, since I was born.‖
―When were you born?‖ asked Mehrotra and added turning to Paranjape. ―Excuse me for
wanting to know the age of your witness, a woman at that.‖

―The question is irrelevant, Ms. Justice,‖ said Paranjape in objection.
―Objection sustained,‖ said Ms. Justice.

―How far away is your house from the Defense Colony?‖ resumed Mehrotra.
―It‘s as far as from Saket.‖

―Isn‘t it possible that the indicted should‘ve seen you in some mall or at the cinema in the
recent past?‖

―It‘s quite possible.‖
―Given your compelling beauty,‖ continued Mehrotra, ―couldn‘t he have retained your
visage?‖

―Objection, Ms. Justice!‖ said Paranjape. ―She needn‘t speculate about the proclivities of
the accused.‖

―Objection sustained,‖ ruled Justice Sumitra.

―That‘s all, Ms. Justice,‖ Mehrotra made his bow.

―Bring the witness under oath,‖ the Judge ordered the daftari.

―I would tell the truth and nothing else but truth,‖ said the woman holding the Bhagvad
Gita in her hand, ―an untrammeled truth for an untainted justice.‖

―You may depose before this court,‖ the Justice gave the green signal to the woman's
damaging testimony.

―That evening, on 01 December 1974, I was walking by the pavement at Saket. When I
sensed that a car came to a halt behind me, I instinctively turned back. He (she pointed her
index finger at Suresh and found him colorless) yelled ‗Excuse Me‘ from the driving seat.
When I looked at him questioningly, he got down from a Mercedes and said he wanted my
help in locating an address in the locality. Without a word he gave me a slip of paper with
an illegibly scribbled address in a tiny handwriting. I stared at it long and hard to figure out
the matter only to feel giddy and to be led by him into his car. It's clear that he would have
smeared the note with some chloroform and the illegible writing in tiny letters was a ruse
to make me take a closer look at it.

As he drove the car into the portico of a bungalow, I regained my consciousness but failed
to gather my wits. I was still disoriented when he led me into a room and tried to disrobe
me. The shock of it brought me back to my senses, and I resisted him all the way. Oh how,
I pleaded with him to spare me since I was already engaged and that my wedding was
round the corner. When he overpowered me at last, I begged him to leave me alone as I
was having my periods then. But still he molested me bestially. As he savaged me like a
brute, I ravaged him with my nails. When I cried shocked and shamed, he warned me not
to report to the police.

―When he was driving me back to the city I realized we were in Mehrauli. As I sobbed all
the way inconsolably, he began boasting about his exploits and foulmouthed women no
end. Oh, how sickening it was to hear him say that while the poor husbands prop them up
domestically, they let their lovers satiate their lust! After all, it was in the dubious nature of
women to lead a double life. Being coy with her man, isn't woman eager to be vulgar with
her lover? Why, aren't women ever ready for a lay with as many whatever it takes! What
hypocrisy, being whorish in their lovers arms, women pretend to be boorish in their nuptial
bed? Why, it was a time-tested female tactic to befool husbands by shrouding their amour
from them.‖

As reciting his callous talk left a bad taste in her mouth, she drank some water before
recapping his further bluster thus— rape, my foot, isn't it sex by default? What a fuss as
man but tends women to get laid! Bet if they are not on the lookout for one-night stands

with all and sundry, day and night that is. And yet they feign indifference if courted! Why
not, they want to be pushed into the act for them to give in with an air of injured
innocence. If only man were to press on, asking him to spare them, won‘t they crave for
him at their core? Oh, how they push for the climax faking resistance! It was in a woman‘s
nature to sham shame, gloating over her good fortune of getting laid. Well, he was no fool
to take them at their words. Why does he appear to be one? Privy to their proclivities,
won‘t he brush aside their pro-forma objections? Won't he give them what they crave all
the while—sexy fare on the sly. Wiser to their false sense of outrage, he came to favor
more of them as a service to the weaker sex.‖

Listening to her, even as the judge and the lawyers, not to speak of Gautam, were
dumbfounded, Suresh wished that mother earth had caved in underneath his feet.

―Oh how disgusted I was with that fiend then,‖ she continued after a pause, as though she
herself needed time to digest what she herself had to reminisce for her testimony.
―Involuntarily hating his very presence, nay existence, unmindful of my own safety, I
pounced upon him. As he lost control at the wheel, the Mercedes collided with a roadside
tree. When I regained consciousness, finding him unconscious, I got panicky. Slowly as I
extricated myself from the wreckage, he began moaning feebly. What a relief it was! Why,
his death would've compromised my own position further. Hiding at some distance, I had
seen him come out of the car and manage a lift back to the city. Noting the registration
number of his car, I too managed to hitchhike back to the city.‖

All the while, Suresh could not desist himself from staring at her in admiration as the rest
were too bowled over by her spirit to take their eyes off her.

―Reaching home, I tried to figure out my future,‖ she continued her tale of woes after
having some more water. ―My first impulse was to put all that behind me and get on with
my life. But then, I realized that while I lived in guilt, he would be outraging many more.
So, I decided not to push my shame under the carpet, but to make him accountable for his
guilt.

I called up my fiancé and told him all. Even as he seethed with rage, I urged him to help
me act against the rapist. All the same, as I cried in shame, he thought of advancing our
marriage to minimize my trauma but seeing me determined to bring the guy to book, he
applied his mind to the situation on hand. He felt it was possible that the culprit might
have died of head injuries by then. In that case, had someone seen me with him, the police
would be seeking her for questioning. Whatever, it would be an idea to clip my nails and
preserve them along with my undergarments. Well, they would come in handy if it got
messy on his account and to pin him down later on a different account that is if he were to
survive.

Well, I wanted to report to the police forthwith but he counseled caution. He said the
defense lawyers invariably give a coat of consensual sex to forcible molestations in their bid

to blight the complainants. So he felt that before going to the police, we should make our
case watertight against the worst cunning of the best of the defense lawyers even.‖

Justice Sumitra couldn't resist herself from looking at Mehrotra whom she found gaping at
the witness in all admiration.

―When we checked at the R. T. O‘s Office, we realized that he survived the accident,‘ the
woman went on about her narration spiritedly, unmindful of the accused‘s predicament.
‗When we were all set to report to the police, the Mehrauli Murder Case hit the headlines.
Well, we followed the developments closely, and when it came for the trail, I came veiled
to the court.

How it pained me to see what was on offer for the goddess of justice. As it became
apparent that the decks are being cleared by the cunning defense for the criminal to walk
free, I decided to alert the court about its consequences to the society at large. Ms. Justice,
here is the incriminating material I mentioned in my deposition that I wish to submit in
support of my averments. I pray to this honorable court to examine the evidentiary value
of my deposition against the accused who is a habitual rapist. Ms. Justice may deem it fit
that my case be taken up separately and direct the police to probe into my allegation.‖

When she finished her testimony, Mehrotra, who had regained his wits by then, rose to
cross-examine her.

―Who‘s your fiancé?‖

―His identity too is irrelevant to her testimony,‖ Paranjape intervened with renewed vigor.
―I submit it may be left as her affair.‖

―Granted,‖ ruled Justice Sumitra.

―Let me see the relevance of her evidence,‖ said Mehrotra superciliously to Paranjape
before he went on pressing deviously on the witness. ―You‘ve stated that Mr. Suresh had
an intercourse with you, didn‘t you?‖

―I said he raped me,‖ she corrected him.

―What‘s a rape if it‘s not an intercourse?‖

―It might help,‖ she said nonchalantly, ―if you check up with your dictionary. Rape is an
intercourse with an unwilling woman qualified by force.‖

―Oh, I see,‖ said Mehrotra unable to hide his admiration for her meticulous preparation.

―By the way,‖ said Mehrotra hoping to trick her, ―are you a virgin?‖

―Didn‘t I state that he raped me?‖

―But were you a virgin,‖ said Mehrotra menacingly, ―when the accused allegedly raped
you?‖

―Yes.‖

―Yet you should‘ve had some idea of lovemaking,‖ said Mehrotra without a let up, ―say,
from friends or through pornography.‖

―Well.....‖

―Can you please tell this honorable court,‖ said Mehrotra unabashedly, ―how your sexual
union with the indicted did differ from what you had imagined it would be?‖

―I was looking forward to the pleasure of penetration,‖ she replied as a matter of fact, ―but
the rape left me in pain and despair.‖

―You being a virgin at the time of the alleged rape,‖ said Mehrotra, seeing a chink in her
amour at last. ―How would this honorable court know whether his force led to rape or
your consent led to his force? After all, deflowering involves some force, does it not?‖

―Objection,‖ roared Paranjape in disgust, ―for this devious question.‖

―Wish the defense draws its own lines,‖ said the Judge in indignation.

―Ms. Justice may please appreciate the validity of my question in the face of her
accusation,‖ said Mehrotra unmoved. ―Having alleged that my client had raped her, she
spelt out her understanding of rape. Thus, it is imperative for the court to know whether
the force allegedly used by Mr. Suresh Prabhu was meant to deflower her willing self.‖

―You may proceed,‖ said Justice Sumitra helplessly.

―You said you were a virgin at the time of the alleged rape and it is a fact that force is an
ingredient of defloration,‖ Mehrotra sounded persuasive. ―Now enlighten this honorable
court why the force you felt was not the part of a consensual deflowering.‖

―The differing womanly responses differentiate the willing defloration and forced
penetration,‖ she said to the relief of Paranjape who by then felt that his rival was wresting
the initiative from him.

―What are those like?‖ pressed Mehrotra not wanting to give up without a fight.

―I presume the pain of defloration would make woman hug her man for her comfort,‖ she
said with all conviction. ―But the revulsion of rape would prompt her to hurt the beast to
resist.‖

―If the accused had indeed raped you, as you allege,‖ said Mehrotra, not the one to relent,
―could you recall his manly attributes?‖

―As I told you,‖ she said dismissively, ―I was subjected to the trauma of rape. If it were a
case of lovemaking, maybe, I would have satisfied your curiosity.‖

―I appreciate your boldness,‖ said Mehrotra making ground for a future assault. ―But did
you experience the nuances of lovemaking later, that is, after the alleged rape?‖

―Objection, Ms. Justice!‖ Paranjape could not control his indignation.

―Objection sustained,‖ ruled Justice Sumitra.

―It‘s a matter of life and death for the accused, Ms. Justice,‖ said Mehrotra with all his
persistence. ―It is imperative that she should apply her mind and review whether the
intercourse the accused allegedly had had with her was indeed rape or defloration in a
moment of her own weakness.‖

―You might reply,‖ motioned Justice Sumitra to the accuser.

―I didn‘t have any sex either before or after he raped me,‖ she said animatedly. ―And I
suppose you cannot ask this honorable court to direct me to have sex now and revert on
the matter later.‖

―What if in repentance the accused had sought your hand in marriage?‖ said Mehrotra,
bowled by her reply, but yet floating a trial balloon. ―Were it possible that you would have
seen it as an opportunity to redeem your lost honor?‖

―I caution the defense not to stray from the path of defense,‖ said Justice Sumitra who was
no more amused by Mehrotra‘s tactics.

―No. Never!‖ replied the girl, all the same.

―Sorry for the transgression,‖ said Mehrotra in apology to Justice Sumitra, but pursued the
matter as menacingly as ever.

―I allege that you had a one-night stand with the accused,‖ said Mehrotra to the woman, to
the indignation of all, ―that was for reasons best known to you. As your fiancé smelt a rat,
you made it up as rape to pull the wool over his eyes. Once this trial commenced, you were
constrained to impress him about your averred innocence. That is why you are going to
lengths to condemn my client to save your skin.‖

―I say it‘s all rubbish!‖ said the woman losing her cool for once.

―Miss, mind your tongue,‖ said Ms. Justice to the witness.

―I do apologize, Ms, Justice,‖ said the witness.

―Now you may answer my question,‖ said Mehrotra.

―You would know that Dostoyevsky said logic is a double-edged sword that cuts both
ways,‖ she said rather aggressively. ―By the same logic does it not seem you have been
going to lengths to make his rape look like my invitation to mate?‖

―Isn‘t the accused young, handsome and wealthy?‖ was another Mehrotra poser to the
defiant girl. ―Won‘t that make him an eligible bachelor otherwise? I‘m sure you cannot
dismiss that as rubbish.‖

―Well, it‘s possible.‖

―Were it possible for some scheming girl to induce him into sex to blackmail him into
marriage?‖

―Speaking for myself,‖ she said, ―I had no such idea.‖

―I allege that you resorted to the very same tactic,‖ said Mehrotra with such finality that
would have veered the vacillating towards him. ―Since you failed to force him into your
wedlock then, now you want to see him led to the gallows.‖

―That way, you can hypothesize anything and everything, can‘t you?‖ she said exposing
Mehrotra‘s faux pas. ―But, if it were the case, why could he not even recall who I am?‖

―What if he had paid sex with you?‖ Mehrotra continued recovering from his unusual
error. ―I allege that you, knowing the value of your client, preserved the proofs of that
coitus for future exploitation. As the Mehrauli Murder Case made the headlines, you began
boasting to your clientele that the accused slept with you. With the word of mouth, it
reached the men behind Shanti‘s murder and they made a deal with you to implicate my
client. I tell you that you are acting at the behest of the real perpetrators of the crime in the
guise of aiding justice.‖

―Didn‘t we see all this coming?‖ said the woman spiritedly. ―The day after the incident, I
moved as a paying guest with an elderly couple whose credentials even you might not
question. If summoned, they would testify to the fact that I received none at home, except
my fiancé, that too in their presence. They would vouch that I never left home once ever
since. For the first time, I came out straight here, that too with that old man in tow.‖

―Well, that still does not disprove it was not a consensual sex after all,‖ said Mehrotra
shifting the burden of proof on the witness.

―You can get a measure of my consent from the entries in the relevant diary,‖ she said,
pulling out ten neatly bound diaries from her handbag. ―I‘ve been maintaining a dairy for
ten years now.‖

As Mehrotra responded in wonderment, she showed him the blank space against 01
December 1974 and the entry of the next day that she asked him to read aloud.

'Oh, God how could this happen to me?' read Mehrotra hoping to find a loophole still.
'What an accursed day yesterday had been. How can I ever forget my shame in spite of ‗his‘
understanding? How have I been dreaming a love drive on the highway of sensuality? What
a cruel fate that ordained a head-on collision with a rapist‘s lust! How was I fantasizing the
ecstasies of lovemaking when the hammer of lust shattered my soul? May God bless me to
forget that beastly experience, that‘s all I ask for in life.‘

―No more questions,‖ said Mehrotra seemingly resigning after scanning a few more entries.

―Have you got anything to say?‖ Justice Sumitra asked Suresh.

―I shamed her then and I feel ashamed now,‖ said Suresh with all remorse. ―And it‘s also
true that I kidnapped, raped and killed Shanti.‖

―I request the learned judge to adjourn the proceedings,‖ submitted Mehrotra, the ‗never
say die‘ lawyer. ―It is clear that the accused is upset about a past misdemeanor not related

to the present accusation. It's his guilt complex in this case, that's conjuring up his guilt in
the case on trial as well.‖

―The trial is adjourned,‖ said Justice Sumitra as Gautam was aghast and Mehrotra remained
clueless for once.

Dilemma of Qualms

On their way back to his place in Gautam‘s Rolls Royce, Mehrotra was mad with Suresh
for undoing his hard work.
―Didn‘t he handle the ball on 99?‖ he said with irritation.

―How are we to make the umpire look the other way?‖ said Gautam feeling helpless.

―Justice Sumitra is known to err on the side of the accused,‖ said Mehrotra pondering over
the turn of events. ―But what can be done when your son wants to hang himself?‖

―Hide the rope,‖ said Gautam characteristically.

―Oh, how I‘ve put my prestige on the line,‖ said the indefatigable lawyer.

―On the line of my son‘s life, that is,‖ said Gautam. ―And I know with you around it‘s not
over as yet.‖

―Now it‘s left for Dr. Prakash Gupta to give a psychic turn to it all,‖ said Mehrotra
contemplatively. ―How that god-dam dame turned the case upside down!‖

Soon Dr. Gupta was pressed into service to heal the fresh wounds of the emotionally
stressed under-trial. It was not long before the specialist detected the altered undercurrents
in the accused‘s psyche induced by the damning testimony of that woman. It seemed as if
his live encounter with his past misdeed induced myriad images of life and death in his
afflicted mindset. In his altered perception, the courage to face the calamity showed by her
seemed to have put his own cowardice to stand trial in a poor light. Further, compared to
her conviction to overcome her trauma, his inability to handle his life shamed him no end.
The more he looked for the differences in their personalities, the more he saw the poverty
of his own character. Moreover, he could see how her spirit to uphold justice contrasted
with his father‘s cunning to subvert the same for his acquittal. As the conflict got
crystallized in his mindset, his outlook towards life underwent a radical change.

‗Why am I hankering for life after all?‘ he thought at length. ‗Going by my past, it‘s worth
nothing, isn‘t it? And what value addition acquittal by trickery would bring in? Why not
face a fair trial and take the sentence as it comes? If they spare me the rope, I would rebuild
my life; otherwise, it‘s a journey into the unknown. Let me see what life has in store for
me.‘

But Dr. Gupta was not the one to buy the argument. He said that one owed to one‘s life to
preserve it at all costs. He took pains to convince the afflicted that it was not he per se but

his misogamist mindset that was behind his crimes. It was only appropriate that he saw his
own commissions and omissions in that light. It was time he desisted from his
psychological self-flagellation. Why his true redemption lay in living a life of a reformer. At
last, the psychiatrist succeeded in infusing in the afflicted the desire to overcome the
present to sort out his life in the future. But, as the good doctor made a compelling case
for Sneha to testify in the court so as to earn him a lenient sentence, Suresh was thrown
into a dilemma of qualms.

‗Maybe, I might escape the noose but would she be able to stand the shame of her owning
up all?‘ he thought reflectively. ‗In spite of everything, wouldn‘t she be clinging to her
honor as dearly as I might like to hang on to my life? Anyway, what is so worthy about my
life that it should be saved by embarrassing her before the Justice and the others? Why
should I let her pay the price for my sins? If her peccadilloes are exposed in my defense,
won‘t she stand naked in the court, though in camera? Won‘t she then die in disgust in the
court itself? Don‘t I know of her haughty nature? Why should I have more blood on my
hands, and for what avail?‘

Overwhelmed thus, the accused expressed his aversion to the expert‘s envisaged line of
defense. In turn, that threw Dr. Gupta into a dilemma of qualms.

‗Maybe, he‘s right in not wanting to compromise his mother,‘ thought the psychiatrist.
‗And it is even indicative of his altered sensitivity, isn‘t it? But is it right for me to keep
quiet, for that could signal his death? And then, how ethical is it to damn a woman to save
her son? I would be damned if I testify, and no less damned if I don‘t. What a dilemma of
qualms! Acquittal is a long shot but my testimony might save him the rope, wouldn‘t it?
Yet, if I keep off, it looks like the noose for him. Then, will I ever be able to live in peace,
having failed to save a life when I could help? But still, how can I flout my professional
ethics to go public with a private admission? What if I breach the code of conduct for a
perceived good? Would I be able to do that with a fair conscience? Oh no, while the
disclosure might help the son, it would devastate the mother, no mistaking that. How are
the interests of the duo at loggerheads hindering my vision? Who‘s there to guide me now?‘

As though led by the divine hand, Dr. Gupta went to Sneha to confabulate with her.
Apologizing for his intrusion into her private terrain, the good doctor proceeded to
psychoanalyze how her adulterous ways led to her son‘s misogamist mindset. Ashamed as
such for having become the talk of the town, she was truly devastated by the doctor‘s
disclosure. Affected as he was by her predicament, yet the doctor in dilemma rooted for
her testimony. He averred that it was bound to buttress her son‘s defense in medico-legal
terms and thus earn him a lenient sentence. Sadly, he concluded, the choice boiled down to
owning up her shame in camera or seeing her son in the death row.

―Doctor saab, what has my life come to now?‖ she said as she sighed. ―Oh, to save my
son‘s life, I must kiss and tell in court! Can it ever get more ironical than that for any
woman?‖

―I understand,‖ he said holding her hands as though guiding her on the way to her destiny,
―what a Hobson‘s choice it is, and it is the sadness of your life now.‖

―I don‘t think you would ever get the full picture,‖ she said, seized by an urge to be
understood by him, ―till I show you the other side of my demented mind.‖

―How I wish to be of help,‖ as he said, he attuned himself to hear her.

‗Oh, why did it never occur to me before?‘ she began contemplatively. ‗Thanks to you, now
I realize that I myself was a victim of parental paranoia. As fate would have it, I was the
first-born besides being the closest to my parents. We are five siblings—three brothers and
two sisters. When I was born, my father, the youngest amongst his six brothers, was a petty
clerk at the municipal office in Guntur. But all his brothers happened to be high ranking
government officials. My father never failed to remind us that his father had retired by the
time he had completed his schooling, and that came in the way of his higher education. But
for that, he felt, like his brothers, he too would have made it good in life. What's worse, as
none of his siblings took up his cause; he came to see them as the source of his
deprivation! Oh how he came to grudge them all his life. God knows the truth; my
grandfather was wont to maintain that my father was no good at studies.‖

―Whatever,‖ she paused for a while, as though to get a correct picture in hindsight, ―it
forced him to settle for a clerk‘s post and remain in the ancestral home. Maybe, he needed
my grandfather‘s pension to augment his own salary to support the family. Of course, all
my uncles left Guntur and were on their own. But my mother was unable to reconcile to
the facts of my father‘s life that denied her a nucleus family of her own. Thus, feeling
trapped in the joint family that entailed her taking care of her aged in-laws, and envying the
carefree life of her sisters-in-law, my mother came to grouse the crumbs of life that fate
had dished out for us all. Well, her sense of frustration helped further my father‘s own
sense of deprivation. All that insensibly cemented their joint sense of helplessness.
Whenever my uncles came with their families to see our grandparents, my parents used to
feel slighted for they believed that the visits were just for a show off. Now I realize to what
lengths the state of imagined deprivation could take one.‖

She stopped for a while as though in disbelief, over what she had said.

―As if to protect their children from developing the poor cousin complex,‖ she continued
in dejection, ―my parents built a cocoon of moral superiority around us. Now I realize with
hindsight that my father wanted his children to score for him in the game of one-
upmanship with his brothers that he had lost by a mile. My mother too felt the same way,
vis-à-vis her sisters-in law. As my siblings and I came of age, they made us aware of the
status gulf that separated our cousins and us. Besides, our parents were wont to pinpoint to
us the nuances of our grandmother‘s differential treatment of them. How our young hearts
used to boil with ambition to redress that parental lacking! Why, we used to assure our
parents that we would make it bigger than our cousins one day. Well, that enabled them to
derive a peculiar satisfaction, and that used to satisfy me and my siblings no end. Maybe

that would've insensibly bound me to lift the stock of our flock subconsciously that is.
That could've been the beginning of my undoing.‖

―But as the dictates of life differ from the desires of man,‖ she continued with a sense of
resignation after a long pause that seemed like eternity to Dr. Gupta, ―and since ambitions
are better realized by the well-heeled, we had to do with clerical education while our uncles‘
largess to the respective institutions, enabled our cousins pursue professional courses.
Ordained by fate though we became the weak links of the grand family chain, our
collective bitterness only got steely by the day. Yet there was a saving grace for the hurt
family pride, and that was the perceived beauty of my sister and me. It has ever been the
only joy of my parents. But, as I crossed nineteen, the thought of dowry seemed to dampen
their spirits all at once.‖

―When Gautam proposed to me,‖ she said excitedly recalling their nascent romance, ―our
family jumped for joy. That he was handsome only added value to his being an engineer.
All of us perceived the alliance as nothing but an accretion to our family pride. Oh, what a
day it was, as everyone says to this day! But Gautam and I had a measure of it only through
our wedding album. Well, we didn‘t have eyes for any but for each other then.‖

At that, she broke down.

―As I was in the seventh heaven,‖ she began at length, ―Gautam showed me visions of far
away galaxies. And, finding him burn with ambition to reach the zenith, I goaded him to
get there. Why, didn‘t I have my own poor cousin burden to shed there? For a start it was
smooth sailing and then it seemed as if we were scaling the heights only to slip down the
slope. Maybe, we grew too big for our shoes or we might have left our business flanks
unguarded. Then came the moment of reckoning: to barter my chastity or embrace
bankruptcy. Was it a choice any way! Oh, how I was averse to have anything to do with
that shameful proposition. But then, how paranoid I had been to see my son‘s cousins
become his poor cousins! So, driven by my over eagerness to score for my family, I scored
a self goal and that was the beginning of our fall, mine as well as Gautam‘s. And from then
on, severally as well as collectively, by degrees, we sank into the depths of depravity.‖

As if their ladder to happiness had broken down at that very juncture, she wept
inconsolably but the good doctor was at a loss for words to console her. Moreover, he
thought it prudent to let her drain out her agony. In time, wiping her tears, she continued.

―What a shame, I began bartering myself for the permits for petrol bunks for my siblings,‖
she said with certain remorse. ―You can figure it out how my moral downturn would have
heralded their upward social mobility. Oh, what an irony! Why, is it not the way of life?
Well, the crowing glory of our family, as we looked at it, was when I helped my sister get
married to an IAS officer. As for the wedding, it is the talk of the town in Guntur even
today. That announced to all, including our poor cousins, the arrival of my father‘s
pedigree on the social stage in all style.‖

She paused and looked at the doctor stoically, and discerning empathy for her in his
demeanor, she turned sentimental.

―When the bubble burst, my people stood behind us as one man,‖ she said proudly. ―Who
said friends are better than relations? Actually, it was our so-called friends who turned their
backs on us! And coming to the media, oh, how unfair it had been to us. How it was made
out that Gautam turned me into a sort of a sexual ladder to climb up to the top of the
business world! Believe me, Doctor saab but for that shameful submission, he never used
my charms for his business promotion, nor did I do on my own. He is a man of honor
ruined by ambition and not the pimp pictured in the press.

‗Why blame others when I am to be faulted?‘ she continued in her choking voice. ‗It was I
who turned wanton and hurt him to no avail. I failed to realize it then and thus invited
ridicule on him. But my poor man is all empathy for me in spite of my lewdness, is he not?
Oh, how I wronged my god! But for his understanding and my siblings‘ support, wouldn‘t
have my shame turned me insane? But as it appears, it‘s the filial puzzle that forked my
destiny.‘

―Why regret about the past?‖ said the doctor impressed with her chequered life. ―I know
you‘re capable of living it down.‖

―Wish I had the strength left for that,‖ she said melancholically. ―Now, it‘s clear that my
impressionable mind was influenced by the parental deprivations to fuel that futile chase
for wealth. How stupid can one be when it comes to the basics of life! Surely my parents
erred in using their children as emotional dustbins to discard their own frustrations and
biases. If not, maybe, I should‘ve restrained Gautam from his overweening ambition and
helped bring balance into his way of thinking.‖

She stopped as though she were at the crossroads of her life all again and turned
remorseful.

―Besides, I wouldn‘t have felt the need to compromise as I did in chasing the twin mirages
of wealth and status,‖ she said regretfully. ―And what a silly life I had led all these years!
But, was I not a victim of the rat race into which my parents had pushed me insensibly?
Though I won‘t like to blame them, yet I wish they had had the wisdom not to bias their
children. Had it been the case, I could have been my own person, with my fair share of
faults. But by imposing their emotional overburden on me in particular, it seems they
complicated my psyche that ultimately led me to my moral nadir. After having lived the
best part of my life in pseudo satisfaction thus, I found myself at the cross-roads of
confusion when the scandal blew up in my face.‖

―Though I never applied my mind to it, I am sure the emotional quotient of my siblings
could be no better than mine,‖ she resumed after a long pause. ―I wonder how they are
handling their lives! God forbid, should they have to face the stiffness of adversity, I am
afraid they would all crack without a clue. Thanks to Gautam, at least, I am better off that
way.‖

She went into a prayer as though to appeal to God not to test her siblings.

―But for that thoughtless upbringing,‖ she resumed her analysis of her life, ―I would have
lived in mediocrity as a faceless practitioner of middle-class morality, all the while
fantasizing life of high society. Maybe unwittingly, my parents readied me to be the glove
on Gautam‘s ambitious hand to grasp the expediency of life. It was another matter that we
lost track of our life itself before we were lost to each other in the end. Maybe I would
never know why I became loose for no conceivable reason. Honestly, had I suspected in
the least that I was pushing my son into the vortex of crime by my wayward ways; I would
have been more circumspect. Who knows, I myself would've got out of the cesspool of
promiscuity. Well, that‘s the regret with which I would've to live and die.‖

―If not for my disorientation, there was no way I would‘ve gone astray,‖ she said with an
apparent regret. ―Gautam was no mean a lover for all that. If not a victim of circumstances,
I wouldn‘t have ended up the way I did. Surely, I shouldn‘t have. True, I am amorous but
not amoral at all. Whatever I had undone myself, hurt my man and ruined my son. Now, I
think it‘s time I help my son at least to get a chance to undo his past.‖

―I know how hard it is for you,‖ said Dr. Gupta as he got up to leave. ―May God give you
the strength to handle your predicament.‖

―Let's hope so,‖ she smiled wearily seeing him off. ―I can never thank you enough for your
concern to my son. Had I shown him a fraction of that, perhaps, things would not have
come to this pass. Well, it is time I show him that I care. How I wronged the man I
married and the son I bore. Sadly, there is no way I can retrieve the shame I heaped on my
man. But it‘s not the case with my son, let me see. Thanks for coming and goodbye to
you.‖

Moment of Reckoning

‗What a life it has been!‘ Sneha found herself thinking after Dr. Gupta had left. ‗Oh, how it
had shadowed my son‘s life! Can I ever look into his eyes which witnessed all that? Why
was I not dead before I came to know of that? It‘s okay that others might smell rat of my
peccadilloes but, oh, to be object of my son's voyeurism, why wasn‘t I wary when he grew
up? How sad my carelessness buggered his psyche and ruined his life as well! Were he to be
hanged, won‘t I be damned? But if I damn myself, he would be saved, how paradoxical!
‗Wasn‘t the rumor mill crunching my reputation for so long?‘ she thought as she recalled
how her own name was besmirched. ‗Well, as is with other scandals so is with my story; it
would be passé in no time? Why, even when it was the talk of the town, some believed and
others gave the benefit of doubt. Wouldn't people's short attention span favor even
scandals in the long run? Whatever, as long as they are not aired in my ear, how am I
bothered about them? But to testify to my shame would only amount to baring my body in
the court, and soul as well, but would any credit me with that! How would that affect poor

Suresh? As it is, my shame is shadowing him! If I were to kiss and tell in court now, that's
bound to shatter him beyond doubt. Isn‘t it a frightful prospect to contend with?‘

As though her body and mind got synchronized by then, she turned dizzy and felt she
could think no more.

‗If only he had spilled the beans in the court!‘ she thought at length, having realized the
problem needed a solution. ‗Would I have a place to hide my head by now? But with his
head on the block he keeps mum about his mom. Oh, how people disown their near and
dear if only to save the bother! And what of the betrayal of their benefactors for no more
than a few bucks! How shameful, and haven‘t I seen all that? Yet, the press pictures him as
a fiend, and all perceive him as lacking in character! Could there be a better character than
his? And for that matter, what‘s wrong with my character?

‗Isn‘t it clear that it is either his head or my head that should roll now?‘ she felt at length,
having reflected upon her life for long. ‗And the choice is clear, isn‘t it? To what avail
should I hang on after all? What would life have to offer me other than ridicule? How
Gautam‘s empathy makes me jittery! Won‘t I feel that his blame game would've been rather
solacing? What if even one of my lickers-in-scores of yore stood by me, it would have
softened the blow. But where are they now? What a collective vanishing act that was!‘

‗Don‘t I know what men are like!‘ she tried to sum up male proclivities. ‗How paranoid
man is for exclusive sexual rights over the frame of his spouse! But which man minds
waiting in the brothel for his turn to satiate himself? Wonder where his sensitivity of lone
possession goes! And what is the fuss about female chastity if it were not man‘s insecurity
about his own virility? Oh what if his spouse thinks his rival seemed better in bed? But
when it comes to a whore, why should man bother even if it were premature ejaculation?
How does it matter for he is her faceless customer, and once out, won‘t he submerge in the
crowd? In truth, man gives a damn to savor the so-called tainted wife of his but his only
worry is how she might've felt about his performance in comparison. Thus, it‘s not the
moral aversion but the perception of his inadequacy that is behind man‘s hurt when he
hurts his woman who takes on another, so it seems. Besides, what the aggrieved man could
do than divorce her under the guise of moral apathy if not kill her out of sexual jealousy?
But then won't man learn to live with his wife paying a blind eye to her paramour.‘

‗Now that my life became an open book,‘ she thought, applying her theory of sexual
desertion, ‗what a let down it could be for all of them to learn that they were not sharing
me just with my husband but with all and sundry as well! But how would they ever know
that I enjoyed every one of them for what they were worth? Well, they should‘ve known
that I didn‘t hold any scale of virility as they laid me. Had I done that really, how many of
them would have measured up to Gautam? Let them go to hell and how does that matter
to me now?‘

However, she could not help feel bitter about the fact of her desertion by all those who
crooned eternal love into her exultant ears.

‗Gautam, how considerate he is as a man and loving as a husband, in spite of it all,‘ she
continued to review her life and times. ‗But, the inconsiderate world sees him as immoral!
What is that society, which denies the genuine their fair share and yet damns the deviants
as immoral? If only there were fair avenues for the upright! Well, being on the brink why
think about the Utopia? Yet, it all feels like betrayal, but then I have had enough of it. And
having savored the scandal for so long now, it‘s as if the world too is tired of me. Maybe
my death might stir up the hornet‘s nest all again, to excite the people for a while. Won‘t
time bury my memory in a hurry?‘

‗How all crave to be remembered after they are dead and gone!‘ she thought. ‗And what
could suit me better than being forgotten, the sooner, that is? At least, that would take
some shine out of the stigma sticking onto Gautam. Suresh, after all, is young enough to
pick up the threads of life after a stint at the Tihar. After all, that‘s what the good doctor
assured me. As and when he comes out a free man, surely, he would still be an eligible
bachelor. At least, our wealth would ensure that.‘

‗Why, am I not old enough to die, though young enough to live otherwise?‘ she began
thinking, seized by a death-wish. ‗I had everything going my way; both ways, always, and
suddenly I find myself at a dead end! What an irony that is! Why not bring the curtains
down before the scene turns too bawdy to stage? Well, it would have been a different story,
had fate allowed me to age without bringing my past to the fore!‘

That night, soon after Gautam had hit the pillow, Sneha, with the denouement in mind,
went to the writing table in the ante-room.

My soulmate:

Whoever thought of such a fall for us from the dizzy heights you took us to! Why, even my
worst fears failed to push me to such a precipice. I‘m sure neither yours would have. After
all, you were sure that by the time the dust settled down, we would have ridden the storm.
And my blind faith in your abilities failed me to see what was coming. Well, it appears that
fate is averse to taking your dictation, at least in this case. Instead, it chose the well-meaning
Dr. Prakash Gupta as the messenger to deliver the script it had fashioned to end our trauma.

How could I've known that I was the cyclonic eye of the stormy life of our son! It appears
that he was privy to my double life ever since he could understand what it was. I know that
it would shock and shame you no less. What a payback for the freedom you granted me!
Pardon me if you can. Maybe, its better that you fail to forgive me for that lessens my
burden a little.

How I wronged Suresh the apple of our eyes! What a hurt to know his mother is a slut! How
cruel of me to let him bear the cross of my debauchery! As for me, it‘s just unpalatable even
to think he had seen it all. Now, having known that I was his voyeuristic target all the while,
I cannot imagine facing him ever again. It seems it was my amorality that induced the
misogamist mindset in him. And we have the word of the well-meaning expert for that.

Maybe unwittingly, but inexorably, I had set our son on a ruinous course. That puts me in
the dock, doesn‘t it? Let me plead guilty in your court that I buggered our son‘s life. God
forbid, if the apple of our eye were to die on the gallows, I would go insane. And I dare not
see him even if he‘s set free. What sense does it make for me to hang around here any
longer?

What a congenial couple we had been! But, how stealthily had fate tampered with our
wedlock! Don‘t I know the pain you felt in having to forsake my womanly honor? But to
what avail did I give in to my latter-day temptations? Why did I take undue advantage of
your goodness to abuse my life that would have hurt you so much?

Now, more than ever, I can visualize what a pain it was for you seeing me turning into a
bitch as it were. Oh, if only it had dawned on me then! Yet, it‘s not with the intent to hurt
you that I say this, but how would it have been had you put your foot down on my
waywardness? But then, you are a gentleman, and I didn‘t prove to be your worthy ladyship.
And still, thanks to your large heart, I was cozy as your wife.

How the scandal changed all that! I am aware that the altered realities of our life would
ensure that it could never be the same again for me and you as well. In a way, hasn‘t our
relationship become untenable, if not tenuous? Maybe, that is what life is all about. That
things have turned sour now, it‘s not fair to say that I regret my life, having led it
consciously, rightly or wrongly. But if I were to do that, it might have some sympathetic
accretion on the sentimental front, which I don‘t want in my account anyway.

Well, I don‘t intend to transfer my burden onto your conscience, as my hypocrisy would
make you suffer even more in guilt. It‘s you who strengthened my character and now I
know its value as never before. Moreover, I have no taste to live like a curio for the rest of
my life. You know, we always lived life the practical way and I want to end mine that way.

I‘ve come to believe that you may be better off without me. As I have lost my shine, and I
know it‘s my own fault, it‘s but proper that I don't let my shadow cast on your life. Besides,
haven‘t I become a jewel-less crown on your troubled head? With the aura of the jewel gone,
what for thou bear its weight, my dear? No, I won‘t let you suffer for I love you more than I
thought I ever did. With the dead-weight of me gone, I am sure it would make a little easier
for you. I know I owe that to you.

Believe me; it‘s not out of any pique that I want to end my life. What have I against you, my
darling, that I should psyche you into guilt? If anything, I had wronged you though I loved
you. Now, it is my genuine desire to make it as easy as I can that is prompting me to call it
quits. If you ever feel guilty on my account, then my end would not have served the
intended purpose.

But, it‘s sad that I‘ve to end it all with a troubled soul. I know that in a weird way, I was
responsible for the misery of those, whom our son had violated, not to speak of poor Shanti
who paid with her life as my unintended dupe. I wish I had helped Suresh grow up to make
a difference to his self as well as to the society around him. But how I came to ignore him?
While I showed the woman in me to many, yet I failed to let him see the mother in me.
Why, it was all owing to my preoccupation with my physicality as woman.

I'm going to die with the hope what my life failed to do for him, my death would. It‘s so sad,
that my lifestyle led him astray by inducing misgivings about me as woman. It‘s my last and
the only wish that you make him understand me as woman. Maybe then, he might
understand the mother in me as well. Know that I would be dying knowing that you can.

Hopefully, that might bring equanimity to his troubled soul, and were that to happen even
my soul would rest in peace well above. Reminiscing about the joy of your love and care, I
am going to have my last prayer for you as well as our son‘s fruitful future.

In all our future lives, I hope to be your wife to give you what all I failed to in this one. I am
ending this life with the conviction that you wish to have me in the coming lives as well. Let
me tell you with all honesty that I see my exit merely as a practical way out for the three of
us.

Forgive me for deserting you, midway.

Yours eternally,

Sneha.

Having finished the letter, she tiptoed into their bedroom and towards their framed
wedding photograph on the dressing table. As she sat on the stool, she couldn‘t take her
eyes off the picture. In time, dropping the letter in her lap, she took the frame into her
hands. But, soon finding the light too dim to hold the picture, she took the frame closer to
her. At that, as the memories of their honeymoon came in torrents, her eyes turned into
waterfalls. When she realized that the farewell letter in her lap was getting wet, she placed it
on the table along with the photograph. If not for her wish to let her man know her mind
at the parting, perhaps, she would have wept herself to death and thus allowed her missive
to smudge in the pool of her tears.

Wiping her tears, she stood near Gautam as he slept in exhaustion. As she looked at him
lovingly, she was seized with remorse. But as her love for him came to the fore, she
experienced a rare fondness for him. Sensing that her new found love for him would tempt
her to develop a weakness for life all again, she went back into the ante-room wondering
how a man could change woman for good or bad.

When she began popping up the pills, she wondered how each of them would be taking
her that much closer to death. At that, as the ironical analogy of her lovers weaning her
away from her man dawned on her, she wondered why she was unable to recall even one
of them at the time of her departure. Sensing that she had a revelation of her life she
rushed to Gautam to wake him up, but on second thoughts, she took her missive and
penned the postscript thus:

As I am half way through, I realize that in the last hours of my existence I don‘t recall any of
those whom I let into my life. More than ever I am convinced now that even as I let many
touch me, I etched none of them in my memory insensibly filled entirely by your loving
persona. Oh, this late realization that I might have loved you and you only, heart and soul,
makes it so easy for me to die. And I hope that it would make your future life less bitter
after all. Goodbye, my love.

Feeling light, she went back into the ante-room and picked up the bottle all again. But, as
she was about to empty the bottle, she thought about the emptiness beyond life, and felt
frightened. Unable to come to grips with her fears, she struggled to reach for her man. At
last, she managed to lay beside Gautam with that empty bottle as though he would fill it
with fortitude. As she realized that at the core of it, her life was as empty as the bottle in
her hand, she tried to speculate what her life would have been like, had she married
someone who wouldn‘t have thought of crossing the Rubicon when it came to it. But, as if
not to hurt her sensibilities at that point of no return, her faculties failed her. In time, her
body too began losing its vitality to hold her restless soul any longer.

End within the End

When Gautam woke up to Sneha's death in dismay, impelled by their paradoxical
togetherness, he felt like following suit. But as the love of life infused hope in him, the pity

he felt for her made him guilty, letting him wonder whether he deserved to live at all. And
that made him feel remorseful no end.
‗Having pulled her into my life, oh, how did I push her towards her death?‘ he cried in
pain. ‗Why did I seduce her soul with the lure of the lucre? Didn‘t she pay the price for my
ambition with her body and soul as well, in life and death? Why didn‘t she make her intent
to die privy to me? Had she lost faith in me, after all? How else could she believe I would
be better off without her? If only she knew how I feel for her! But then, where was the
time for our togetherness, busy as we were chasing the mirage of wealth? What trophy had
we won in the rat race of life?

‗What else to expect after that fatal decision?‘ he went into a reminiscent mode. ‗Why did
the devil prompt me to make that deal with that son of a bitch? How did fate trick us into
our own undoing? Or was it a test of my character? What a shame that I prompted her to
prostitute herself! It was as if I had turned her into a sex ladder to reach the nadir. How
naïve I was to believe that we would be able to put all that behind us, and that life would
be a sonorous song of married bliss. But then, how could I blame her if she lost her sexual
balance in the process. Why, had it not affected my own sensitivity? Oh, how we lost out
together! Didn‘t we realize soon enough that at its core, our make-believe world was
hollow? How stupidly we tried to fill our emptiness with sexual newness! Wonder how we
went about it as though by an agreement though we never discussed it? At least, we clung
to each other mechanically, but now it‘s as if the coupling to the driving end itself got
severed. Well, owing to the fatigue of our life, isn‘t it?‘

‗But could it have been any different?‘ he tried to analyze their life in the rewind. ‗What was
the starting point anyway? Was it not the moment I sent her to that brat? Didn‘t I feel then
as if she took away my soul with her? Didn‘t I deserve it? Or did I really care for all that?
But, didn‘t she herself have an axe to grind with for her family? Whatever it was, oh, how
confused she looked as she came back! And how empty I felt receiving her! What an
empathy I felt for her as I took her into my arms. How I wanted to assure her of my
eternal love. But, lo, having hugged her tight, didn‘t I gauge the gulf between us? When my
remorse made me crunch her closer, didn‘t I feel the rough of the invisible between us?‘

‗What about her?‘ he continued recalling that fateful event with a sinking heart. ‗Instead of
sinking deep into me, didn‘t she slip out on the sly? Didn‘t it seem an end within the end to
me? How hurt I was for forcing that one-night stand on her! What a pain it was later to
realize that she was going strong with that chap! And how she began distancing herself
from me! Didn‘t that force me to seek refuge in my business? But, what a narcotic success
is! How it helped dully the pain of her peccadilloes! If not for it, wouldn‘t I have put my
foot down on her? What a longing I had for her then! And by the time she rediscovered
her love for me; didn‘t I myself develop a roving eye? That was that. And after that, was
she not one of many, sexually, that was?‘

Lest he should have been unfair to her in his reminisces, he began reading her letter all
again.

Yet, it‘s not with the intent to hurt you that I say this; but how would it have been had you
put your foot down on my waywardness! But then, you are a gentleman, and I didn‘t prove
to be your worthy ladyship. And still, thanks to your large heart, I was cozy as your wife.

‗Why didn‘t I reprimand her?‘ he cried inconsolably. ‗Any man would‘ve done just that with
a wayward wife, wouldn‘t he? But then, was it not my misplaced sense of honor that made
me ignore her waywardness? Oh, if only I had realized that it made no sense to keep my
word in the face of her abusive ways. How did I fail my woman all the while believing I
was more than fair to her? What if I end my life for having undone hers? But, is not life
itself an end within the end? Why, won‘t youth bring an end to the childhood to start with?
And how successively life ends its own phases till death ends it once and for all? Why not I
let my old age end the waywardness of my middle age?‘

All the same, as he came alive to the rituals of her death, he thought about their son.

‗If anything he‘s the worst sufferer for my foolhardiness!‘ he began to think. ‗At least,
Sneha and I had a wild go at life but what about him? What if his life gets snuffed out
before it blossoms? What a pity it is to die in the flower of youth. How I failed her as
husband and him as father. Damn my success when I failed my family! What an irony,
though we wronged him, he needs to perform her last rites now, and God willing mine in
time to come!‘

When Suresh was brought home on bail midday that day, Gautam felt as though he was
himself on trial. Seeing him enter with a sense of shame, immobilized as he was by guilt,
Gautam could make no move himself. With his troubled conscience, as Suresh dragged his
feet to his mother‘s body confusedly, overwhelmed by remorse, Gautam looked at him
endearingly. But, Suresh stared at Sneha‘s body vacantly and felt she had closed her eyes as
though to save them both the embarrassment of reunion. While the son found himself
staring at his mother‘s body thus, the father was too embarrassed to even look at him.

Nevertheless, the irony of the moment opened Gautam‘s eyes to the collapse of his ivory
tower. As though he had a revelation all of a sudden, shedding all his inhibitions, he went
up to his son and showed him the damning letter. When tears blurred Suresh‘s vision,
Gautam wiped them for him to see his mother in the dead woman.

When Suresh fell at his mother‘s feet in penitence, Gautam stared at his dead wife in
repentance. While the son in Suresh wept silently, to solace his own embittered soul, the
father in Gautam embraced him to console himself. In a way, their tragedy seemed to have
induced a mutual empathy for each other that transcended the barriers of their grief. In
their state of mutual reconciliation, insensibly they both felt sympathy for the departed
soul.

When came time for Sneha‘s last journey, as though to stress that they shared the blame for
her fall, Suresh insisted on being a pallbearer aside his father. But seeing his mother in all
her nakedness on the funeral pyre, he saw the paradox of their relationship.

‗What an irony that all along I was coveting the very body that I was destined to consign to
the ritualistic fire!‘ thought the son melancholically. ‗It‘s as though in death she assigned it
to me, as it was unthinkable for her to entrust it to me when alive.‘

As the purohit nudged him to do the needful, Suresh performed his duty in a caressing way
as though to save her of pain to the extent possible. When her body was engulfed in
flames, he prayed for her soul and vowed to fulfill her last wish were he to live. At that, he
was surprised to realize that he neither feared death nor coveted life anymore. Though, the
purohit signaled the end of the rituals for the day and that the ashes could be gathered on
the morrow, the father and son were averse to leaving the place till the very end of Sneha's
earthly existence. And, in time, as the sun sank into the horizon, the embers of the funeral
pyre began to subside, bringing her ashes to the fore. As though to atone for their role in
her death by ordeal of fire, they both braved the heat to gather her ashes from the
remnants of the funeral pyre to the last molecule.

When they reached home, they reverentially placed the urn of her ashes before her life-size
painting and kneeled before it for long. As they could hold no longer, they squatted on the
floor there. At that, with his wife‘s ashes for witness, Gautam talked to his son, man to
man.

―Though her body is no more to bear her grief,‖ he said choking, ―I‘m sure her soul would
be restless till you realize what she really was. You know it was her last wish, and I want to
fulfill that by revealing the saga of our life. Let her soul vouch for the truth about the
narrative.‖

Vestiges of Prestige

Once upon a time, the hollowed stock of the Prabhus was an envied lot in Amalapuram.
While their palatial bungalow seemed unending, their landholding once covered the tehasil
itself. It was into that ancient clan with the renowned surname that Gautam was born. At
the time of his birth, his great-grandfather happened to be the head of that undivided
family of six siblings. As was the wont of the gentry of his generation, he was a man of
leisure and his brothers too were equally unoccupied.
However, unlike their ancestors, the siblings had to contend with the depleted landholding
and the reduced stature that it afforded. It was all owing to the propensity of the men of
the clan to cut a figure for themselves and the proclivity of their women to set their image
in the jewels. Besides, the males were wont not to lose any bid for deflowering bogum girls
of the hallowed brothels. In due course, their profligacy besides making the women shorn
of their jewels in numbers dented their resources by degrees. And, the dowries for the
daughters of the family too contributed to the downturn in no small measure.

By the time Gautam‘s grandfather, a namesake, was born, the resource crunch forced the
elders to send their children in search of greener pastures. Of course, the clan had always

been well educated, including the women. But, custom prevented Gautam the senior to
desert the hearth and home. It was thus he came to reign in the ancestral house though not
leading a leisurely life. Anyway, wiser to the strides made by those of that ilk in Madras by
then, he did not come in the way of his three sons settling down there.

When he died at sixty, he could leave no family silver worth its weight for the extended
clan to adorn their hallowed surname. With none of the clan members around in
Amalapuram, his widow opted to stay with Suresh Prabhu, her first born and junior
Gautam‘s father. At that time, he was a maths tutor in Pachaiapah‘s College. And to
supplement his income to ensure the latter-day professional education to his promising
son, Suresh used to double up as tutor for the evening courses. His drudgery contrasted
with his brothers in the departments who made good of their positions to line their
pockets. And his cousins whose fathers had provided them the head start in the metropolis
were all well-heeled by then. It was thus that the once eminent joint family gave way to
nucleus families of uneven incomes.

Gautam being his only child, in spite of his modest means, Suresh Prabhu brought him up
without any feeling of wanting. It was when Gautam was five that his grandmother came to
stay with them. And that pepped up his life to make his childhood a memorable one. As
she began to bestow such love upon him that only grandmothers‘ can, he was insensibly
drawn towards her. Being a gifted storyteller, she unraveled the heroics of the epics to his
inquisitive mind.

But, what thrilled him the most was the hearsay of their family glory that she reveled in
revealing. As she always turned nostalgic in her narration, Gautam was wont to boast that
one day he would restore the past glory to the family name. Pleased to the core, the old
woman used to assure him that she would be watching his success from heaven to rejoice
at it. But all this did not amuse Gautam‘s mother for she felt it might put an undue
pressure on his eventual psyche. Whenever she took up the issue with Suresh Prabhu, he
dismissed her dubbing them as undue fears.

If not his ambition, the environment at home that emphasized on education enabled the
young Gautam to excel at studies. That he was adept at outdoor sports too made him a
hero in his school. After schooling, when he kicked the knickers and cycled his way to
Pachaiapah‘s College in trousers, he experienced a feeling of being big. As his handsome
looks were a big draw at the campus, his sexuality too was cast in a self-assured mould.

Eventually, when he topped the class, he felt at the top of the world. As opportunities
abounded for the civil engineers then, what with umpteen dams over the major rivers in
the pipeline, he joined the course in Guindy Engineering College. When he came out with
flying colors after five years, he was in a position to choose his employer. As he chose to
join the Central Public Works Department, he was posted at the construction site of
Nagarjunasagar as a Junior Engineer.

Soon Gautam set out to the nearby Guntur to call on his father‘s cousin sister whose
husband was a lawyer of note there. As he approached their bungalow on Ring Road, he
realized they were richer than what his father had pictured them to be. All the same, his
aunt and her husband welcomed him warmly. And Mallika, their daughter, seemed to have
loved him at first sight. Himself drawn to her, he began to imagine the possibility of
marrying her. Guntur being near enough to his workplace for a weekend outing, he lost no
opportunity to visit their place to be with her. While her reciprocity fuelled his love, her
parents‘ reception nursed his hope.

But, when he proposed to her, she wanted him to come through the proper channel. So he
approached his father to broach the issue with her parents, but his mother was
apprehensive about the outcome. Though she pictured the status gulf that separated their
families, Gautam‘s enamored eyes failed to fathom the same. When the father too felt that
the proposal was a non-starter, the son assured him that Mallika would find the way for
them to the altar.

Thus, pestered by Gautam, his father was forced, against his better judgment, to call on his
cousin. Slighted by the rebuff that followed, Gautam pressured Mallika to defy her parents.
But her refusal to go by his diktat left him brokenhearted. Unable to reconcile himself to a
life without her, he confronted her parents with the picture of his future in the making.
When they were blunt that matches get fixed on the current rating and not on future
holding, he grudged his fate, in spite of the promise it held.

Later, hoping that time would have softened their stand, he called on them again to renew
his request. But, as they asked him not to make a nuisance of himself by calling on them,
he felt humiliated. Smarting from the insult, he shot from the hip that he would soon take a
wife to whom their daughter would not hold a candle and that one day he would make it
bigger than all of them put together.

His resolve to strive to make that a reality seemed to define his destiny even as the
recollection of his childhood boasts of restoring the family aura gave him a sense of
purpose. And his grandmother‘s words of rejoicing at his success from heaven seemed
prognostic to his perturbed mind.

High on Rebound

In his search for someone better than the one who had spurned him, Gautam rejected
match after match. Well, as his eyes were in search of Mallika‘s replica in the prospective
bride, no match matched the lost one. But as it dawned on him soon enough that it was far
easier to boast than to bring it about, he felt doubly shattered. And yet, as he kept nursing
the slight he felt, his hurt ego ensured that he sustained his resolve to get even with those
who humiliated him.

When Sneha brought some schoolchildren for a picnic to Nagarjunasagar, Dame Luck
smiled on him as though to tempt his destiny. Assigned by his boss to guide the party, as
he entered the guest-house that morning, he saw her in the sofa waiting for the unknown
him. Bewildered by her beauty and bowled by her charm, he stopped in his tracks. When
she got up to greet him, the flow of her frame stunned him even more. As she went about
assembling her flock, struck by her poise, he didn't take his eyes off her. Further, enthralled
by her bewitching smile and enchanting tone, he felt as if he had retrieved his lost hope.
While he stood rooted lost in her charms, sensing that she had stolen his heart, she bowed
her head as though in guilt.

Taking them around, he felt that his sprouting love was ever on the rise as a dam in the
making. Instinctively, he felt that as his wife, Sneha could wipe out his hurt and make him
forget his past. Thus, guided by his conviction, he tried to charm his way into her heart.
When he perceived reciprocity in her coyness, he felt ecstatic about his future.

When it was time for her to take the kids back to Guntur, for fear of losing her hand, he
contrived to accompany her. Spurred on by her fondness for him during that journey, he
lost no time in proposing. And she joyously responded by inviting him home.

When they were engaged shortly thereafter, not only he was thrilled but also felt avenged.
The chance happenstance made him believe that the hand of providence was at work in his
life. When Sneha told him that their engagement was a remedial measure to her family as
well, his sense of destiny reached the core of his hope. Having got a wife who was better
than the one who had spurned him, he felt hopeful that the other vow he took would as
well come true. And that became Gautam‘s abiding faith.

The wedding that followed became the talk of the town as the love marriage of the time.
Besides, his handsome persona and her divine figure made them look like they were made
for each other. In that romantic backdrop, the praises showered by their cousins and
others made them value each other even more. As they divined the just married, even as
the eyes of her parents were welled up with joy, the hearts of his parents emptied their
anxieties.

The nuptial night however ushered in new hopes for the vindicated groom and the blissful
bride. While Gautam‘s passion took her to the frontiers of her dreamland, her amorous
eagerness drove out his sense of rejection from his subconscious. It was as though the
force of her physical charms dented his desire for material possessions. The fulfillment of
their consummation buttressed his self-worth and furthered her hopes for the future. But,
his feeling of being avenged that her charms buttressed blocked his vision to the beauty of
her inner self. Likewise, having been swirled by his manly passion, she found herself
gloating over her womanly fortune. It was in that sensual setting they were to begin their
married life at Nagarjunasagar even as the euphoria of their fortuitous union restored
equanimity to Gautam‘s hurt ego and brought balance to Sneha‘s twisted psyche.

When she first set her foot in the township, Sneha became a big draw with one and all.
While her charms whetted men‘s appetites, her simplicity endeared her to the womenfolk.
Even as her unassuming manner drew the youth to her home, her dignified demeanor kept
the lechers at bay. But, destiny didn‘t seem to have tranquility in store for them as they
soon found themselves heading towards New Delhi.

As Sneha frequented the Officers Club with Gautam, his boss didn‘t lose much time to
develop a crush on her. While Gautam was engaged in one sport or the other, his boss
turned solicitous about her affairs. Mistaking her respect towards his elderliness as her
admiration for his youthful heart, he soon started imagining the possibilities. So he began
scheming about the ways of seducing her and saw Gautam‘s absence-at-home as the means
into her enticing arms. Thus, assigning outstation duties to Gautam, he began calling on
her on the sly.

Though she guessed his motives soon enough, she was out of depth to handle his
trespasses. That only emboldened the boss and thus he began to court her in earnest. As
his ardency increased, Sneha was seized by her impulse to show him the door. But on
second thoughts it occurred to her that if snubbed, he might take it out upon Gautam. And
were she to take her man into confidence, he might take his boss to task. Either way, she
feared that it would hurt Gautam‘s career and her own future not to speak of shattering her
parental hopes. It was not lost on her either that his visits might send wrong signals to the
neighbors making their way to Gautam‘s ears in the end. Confounded thus, she was
immobilized by her predicament.

But the seducer, mistaking her stance as a veil of soft resistance, waited for an appropriate
moment to unmask her charms. When he ambushed her in the end, she raised an alarm
that ensured his retreat. Fearing his misadventure was sure to hurt his promising career and
so as to long distance himself from the scandal, the boss pulled all strings to get Gautam
transferred to New Delhi. Outraged though at his boss‘s perfidy, Gautam felt the
development could be a blessing in disguise for Delhi would provide better opportunities
for his development. Above all, he was gratified by his wife‘s chastity and felt he was
doubly blessed for that.

Bellows of Delhi

But, once in Delhi, the Gautams felt like fish out of water. The smell of the place, full of
airs put on by all and sundry put them off. While the superciliousness of the educated irked
them, the arrogant ignorance of the rest puzzled them. The intellectual apathy of the Delhi-
wallahs that tended to collage all the South Indians as Madrasees irritated them. The bigotry
of the cow belt characters in equating the Indianness with Hindi-speaking hurt their own
sense of belonging. They were nonplussed at the naivety of the North Indian milieu that
assumed, south of the Vindhyas it was dark skin all the way.

The North Indian disbelief that Sneha could be a Madrasee for her rosy skin, nevertheless,
catered to their vanity. But, the prevailing impression created by the Northern tourists that
the Madrasees go about barefoot scandalized them no end. Ironically, the left-handed
compliment that Madrasees were a religious lot made the Gautams feel apologetic about the
lack of their religiousness.

In due course, the flip side of New Delhi greatly impressed as well as influenced them.
While Gautam was bowled over by Delhi‘s tailors, seeing women in sleeveless blouses,
Sneha felt as though she wore a veil. Thus, they both lost no time in adapting themselves,
he by acquiring a new wardrobe and she by shedding the sleeves.

Yet their stammering Hindi remained a handicap to feel at home in the city that their
destiny brought them to. So as to overcome the handicap, they set out to master Hindi,
underscored with an impeccable accent. And in time, they began to articulate themselves in
Hindi with certain finesse even. It was only time before they even began to thump the
Hindi chauvinists in their own tongue with the quip that the books that really mattered in
their language were Tulasidas‘ Ramayana and the Railway Guide.

But, it was Delhi‘s cultural ethos that troubled them to start with. Accustomed as they were
to subtle shades, the so-called show that ruled Delhi‘s ethos appeared gaudy to their eyes.
The excessive formality of the Northern culture that contrasted with their own informal
South Indian manners perplexed them. And the elaborate hospitality of the Delhi folks
made them feel foreign in their own capital. Besides, the artificial endearment in Delhi‘s
social interaction embarrassed them for their inability to imbibe the same. What was worse,
the chitchat that invariably centered on the absentees offended their sensibility nurtured by
the concept of confidentiality. On the other hand, the social nicety of reciprocity hampered
them for want of paraphernalia to entertain in return.

Above all, it was the Delhi-wallahs‘ compulsive need for competitive exhibitionism that
confounded them the most. Insensibly, they began feeling small in the drawing rooms of
others as well as in their own. As guests, they were wont to be on guard sipping tea in the
carpeted drawing rooms lest they should spoil the sofas. But, whenever someone dropped
in, they squirmed in their steel foldable chairs, all the while apologizing for the discomfiture
caused for want of appropriate furniture. Thus, to begin with, in New Delhi‘s social setting,
the Gautams remained out of depth. And insensibly, the consciousness of their material
lacking sunk into their psyche to distort their material orientation.

Even as the attractions of Delhi seduced them, the possibilities of success fired their
imagination. As they saw the glamour that status gave to the couples and the aura riches
provided to the families, their own deprivation for the lack of both became all the more
acute. Thus, in time, their post-marital equanimity gave way to materialistic fatigue that
opened up their old wounds besides causing some new sores.

As Sneha‘s suppressed desires began to seek outlets in none too subtle ways, Gautam could
see the unsavory direction in which their life might head. When he pictured the pitfalls in